http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/category/health.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/uoe-ong031610.php http://tobacco.org/news/298586.html A study in New Zealand showed that, three years after a smoking ban on all workplaces was introduced, hospital admissions for heart attacks among men and women aged 55-74 fell by 9 per cent. This figure rose to 13 per cent for 55-74 year olds who had never smoked. Overall, the research showed heart attacks among people aged 30 and over fell by an average of 5 per cent in the three years following the ban. The study, involving scientists from the University of Edinburgh, examined trends in acute heart attacks following a change in legislation. The ruling, which updates a previous law in which smoking was outlawed in some public places, makes smoking illegal in all workplaces including bars and restaurants. . . . The study, carried out with the Universities of Otago and Canterbury in New Zealand and the University of Southampton, was published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. EurekAlert catriona.kelly@ed.ac.uk New Zealand Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/90880/6921436.html http://tobacco.org/news/298573.html Thirteen Chinese medical colleges will introduce smoking control courses into their curriculum amid efforts to help raise public awareness about the dangers of smoking. It will be the first time that Chinese universities have offered such courses, Shen Huahao, vice dean of the School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, said Tuesday. The school is among the 13 medical colleges, including Peking Union Medical College and medical schools at Peking University and Fudan University. . . . At least 6,500 students were expected to take the courses each year, for them to complete a five year anti-smoking education program, Shen said. "We hope to increase smoking control efforts, starting from in schools," he said. "We'll train the medical students so they know the dangers of smoking." More than half of Chinese male doctors are smokers People's Daily China Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/mar/15/ucsd-research-finds-cigarette-ads-targeted-teen-gi/ http://tobacco.org/news/298568.html A new study from UCSD finds a 2007 marketing campaign for Camel cigarettes was effective in encouraging teenage girls to smoke. The ads apparently violated a tobacco industry agreement that prohibited companies from targeting kids. The ads for Camel No. 9 ran in five of the most popular magazines among teen girls, including Glamour and Vogue. KPBS TV/FM Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/03/16/2010-03-16_camel_cigarette_ads_are_a_big_hit_with_teenage_girls_study.html http://tobacco.org/news/298567.html Fashion magazine ads for Camel No. 9 cigarettes scored such high marks with girls ages 12 to 16 that a year after they appeared, 22% of the girls in a new survey listed Camel as their favorite brand of butt, according to USA Today. Nearly half of the 1,036 tweens and teens in the study, published online in Pediatrics, could name a favorite cigarette ad. Nonsmoking teens who can identify a favorite ad are 50% more likely to take up smoking as other kids, says the study. Some 80% of smokers start lighting up before age 18. Camel No. 9 was launched in 2007, and promotional giveaways featured berry-flavored lip balm, cell phone jewelry, wristbands and purses, according to the study. The ads for the cigarette ran in magazines like Vogue, Glamour and Cosmopolitan. New York Daily News Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=637077 http://tobacco.org/news/298566.html A carefully targeted and powerful regimen of radiation therapy kept early-stage lung tumors stable in patients who had inoperable cancers. Almost 56 percent of patients who underwent the therapy, called stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), were still alive three years after their treatment, according to preliminary findings from a study published in the March 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a themed issue on cancer. By contrast, only about 25 percent to 30 percent of patients who receive conventional fractionated radiotherapy survive that long. HealthDay [HealthScout] Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=637076 http://tobacco.org/news/298565.html Blood vessel function rapidly recuperates after smokers kick the habit, leading to a reduced risk of heart disease and heart attack, new research shows. The study included more than 1,500 people taking part in a clinical trial to help them quit smoking. Before and one year after the participants stopped smoking, doctors used ultrasound to measure the patients' flow-mediated dilation (FMD), a gauge of the health of the brachial artery, the main artery of the upper arm. The ability of the brachial artery to relax is closely related to the ability of the heart arteries to relax, and predicts risk for future heart and blood vessel disease, explained the University of Wisconsin researchers. HealthDay [HealthScout] Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=636963 http://tobacco.org/news/298564.html Although the 1998 settlement agreement between big tobacco and state governments restricted advertising to children and teens, nearly half of teenage girls participating in the study could name their favorite cigarette ad. What's more, the study found that teenagers who could name a favorite cigarette ad were 50 percent more likely to have smoked during the five-year study period. One ad campaign in particular stood out in the minds of teen girls and increased their awareness of cigarette advertising, the study found. The product was Camel No. 9 cigarettes, and the ads featured a pink camel and a sub-brand of cigarettes called Stiletto. In addition to the very feminine ads placed in such magazines as Glamour and Vogue, the campaign also featured promotional giveaways, including flavored lip balm, purses and cell phone jewelry. "These are the same people that brought us Joe Camel, a very big campaign with multiple different components," said study author John Pierce, a professor of family and preventive medicine and director of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego. "Now it seems like what they're doing is trying a campaign, and then when people complain, they change and do something else." HealthDay [HealthScout] Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/303/11/1084 http://tobacco.org/news/298561.html It has been almost 40 years since President Nixon proposed, in his 1971 State of the Union address, to " . . . launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer. . . . "1 The National Cancer Act, signed into law in December of the same year, broadened the scope and responsibilities of the National Cancer Institute, which had existed on a much smaller scale since 1937.2 The National Cancer Act also vastly increased federal funding "in order to more effectively carry out the national effort against cancer."2 Since 1971, the so-called war on cancer has consumed more than 100 billion federal research dollars, when allocations from all US agencies from 1970 to the present are combined.3 These funds have been more than matched by research investments from pharmaceutical companies, nongovernmental organizations, and states. However, the total spending on cancer research is dwarfed by the . . . Journal of the American Medical Association Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/19046 http://tobacco.org/news/298560.html Almost 40 years and 100 billion federal dollars have been invested in the "War On Cancer" since President Richard M. Nixon declared it, but the campaign is far from over, two researchers concluded this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "These funds have been more than matched by research investments from pharmaceutical companies, nongovernmental organizations, and states, Susan Gapstur, PhD, MPH, and Michael Thun, MD, both of the American Cancer Society, noted in a commentary that accompanied a wide-ranging Mar. 17 issue on cancer. "However," they wrote, "the total spending on cancer research is dwarfed by the medical and social costs resulting from the more than 100 diseases that are collectively called cancer." Although some critics complain about the relatively slow progress of the fight against cancer compared to other health threats, such as cardiovascular disease, the authors argued that comparing cancer rates in the U.S. at any two time points "can be misleading." Such comparisons should "take into account the more than 30% increase in the U.S. population that has occurred since 1970, and the nearly 2-fold increase in the proportion of adults aged 55 years or older, who account for more than 75% of all incident cancers," they wrote. . . . "As life expectancy has increased, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with cancer has increased as well," Gapstur and Thun wrote. "Nearly 1 in 2 men and more than 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer given the current lifespan." Cancer is currently the second leading cause of death in the U.S. and will overtake ischemic heart disease as the leading cause of death worldwide if current trends continue. "Internationally, the increasing numbers and aging of populations, in conjunction with the dissemination of Western patterns of smoking, diet, and physical inactivity, are already creating a global health crisis for many chronic diseases, including cancer, in low- and medium-resource countries," the authors observed. . . . One area where significant progress has been made is in primary prevention -- largely through the reduction of cigarette smoking in the U.S. The resulting decrease in lung cancer mortality accounted for nearly 40% of the reduction in the overall cancer death rate in men between 1990 and 2006. On the other hand, "the epidemic of overweight and obesity -- which is associated with the incidence of many types of cancer -- during the past two decades in the United States has created a new public health challenge," though its effects on cancer incidence are unclear, Gapstur and Thun wrote. MedPage Today Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/03/16/one-in-five-women-in-wales-smoke-while-pregnant-91466-26039044/ http://tobacco.org/news/298557.html WALES has the highest rates of women who smoke during their pregnancy in the UK, shocking figures reveal today. Despite the social taboo, the figures from anti-smoking charity ASH Wales show one-in-five women continue to smoke throughout pregnancy. Midwives said many young women are smoking while pregnant because they believe they will have smaller "doll-like" babies. Helen Rogers, the Royal College of Midwives' board secretary for Wales, said: "Years ago women thought if they continued to smoke they wouldn't put on as much weight and they would have smaller babies that are easier to deliver. "I thought that thinking had been educated out of existence but it hasn't - there are a lot of teenagers who, to be in with the in- crowd, are smoking. "They are getting pregnant and continuing to smoke because their peers are smoking. "It's about keeping pretty, keeping slim and having tiny, doll-like babies. No matter how much midwives say smoking is bad, it's very hard to get that message through." WalesOnline UK-Wales Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=17016 http://tobacco.org/news/298555.html A history of alcohol abuse does not appear to affect men and women's current mental functioning. However women who have ever smoked are not so lucky, the results of a new study indicate. US researchers looked at almost 300 men and women, aged 31 to 60. They found that those who abused alcohol in the past performed similarly on cognitive function tests as those with no past drinking problems. In other words, their previous alcohol abuse did not affect their current memory and thinking ability. However in general, women who had ever been addicted to smoking had lower scores on certain cognitive tests compared to their non-smoking counterparts. The same pattern was not seen in men. The researchers noted that the reasons for the findings are unclear. . . . Details of these findings are published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. IrishHealth.com http://www.irishhealth.com/contact01.html?to=info@irishhealth.com (Deborah Condon) Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/egypt/100216/cairo-smoking-sex-impotence http://tobacco.org/news/298548.html Last month, Egypt’s Ministry of Health unveiled their latest weapon in the war on smoking: a graphic warning label of a drooping cigarette, symbolizing the potential for tobacco-induced impotence, plastered on every pack sold throughout the country. Next to the picture of the limp butt, a statement in Arabic warns, “long-term smoking will affect marital relations.” It wasn’t the first such graphic message to illustrate the dangers of smoking, but for many Egyptian men, it was the first they had heard of a connection between impotence and tobacco. And among some of the heaviest smokers, confusion gave way to bravado. “We know smoking is not good for the health, but I can’t believe this,” said Nadir Abdel Rahim, 40, from the Darb el-Ahmar neighborhood. “I’ve been smoking 22 years, and I work just fine. Very fine, actually.” But in this male-dominated society, many men were more concerned for women, shocked that they could so easily see a reference alluding to sex. GlobalPost Egypt Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/ip-oap031610.php http://tobacco.org/news/298546.html Babies born to mothers with obesity and exposed to passive smoking are more likely to have health problems than others. This conclusion is based on evidence of elevated levels of nucleated red blood cells in the umbilical cord reported in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health. Pediatrician Abd ElBaky of the National Research Centre, in Cairo, and colleagues there and at Cairo University, Egypt, have found that obesity and passive smoking are risk factors for elevated umbilical cord neonatal immature, or nucleated red blood cells (NRBCs). Raised levels of NRBCs are indicative of a degraded oxygen supply to the baby during the pregnancy. . . . Tobacco smoke inhalation whether direct or indirect may affect the amount of oxygen reaching the unborn child, because hemoglobin is poorly oxygenated. Nicotine can also cause narrowing of blood vessels, vasoconstriction, and so reduce oxygen supply through that mechanism too. EurekAlert abeernour66@yahoo.com Egypt Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.brusselsdeclaration.org/pages/signatories/ http://tobacco.org/news/298535.html Number of signatories since December 4, 2009: 236 (First signatories on top - Reverse order ) * Dr. Gio Batta Gori, Toxicologist, Bethesda, United States * Dr. Phil Button, Medical doctor, Basingstoke, United Kingdom * Michael McFadden, Writer/Researcher, Philadelphia, United States * Wiel Maessen, Forces Netherlands, Zaltbommel, Netherlands * Christopher Snowdon BA, Writer/Researcher, Hove, United Kingdom * William Gibson, Freedom2Choose (Scotland), Lockerbie, United Kingdom * Michael Marlow Ph.D, Professor of Economics, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo, United States * Abraham Peper, Physicist, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands * MSCEP Laurent St. Germaine Counceling Ed. Psych, Retired, Canutillo, United States * David Goerlitz, Motivational speaker/Actor, D&G Associates, Berlin, United States The Brussels Declaration Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.brusselsdeclaration.org/pages/passive_smoking/ http://tobacco.org/news/298534.html The principal reason for this conclusion is that, retrospectively, neither measures of individual lifetime doses nor measures of individual lifetime exposures to ETS are possible. Yet all epidemiological al studies on ETS and official reviews of the same have pretended that such data had been measured. Still, even assuming that such fabricated data are real, other intrinsic flaws that this analysis highlights negate the conclusions of individual studies and of reviews of the same. Studies claimed to be scientific, and presenting quantitative conclusions in precise statistical terms, by necessity and by definition must have derived those conclusions from primary data that have been measured with comparable accuracy. The studies also must warrant the authentic identity of those data and their relevance to the conclusions. The same studies must warrant that conclusions are corrupted by neither experimental or observational confounders, nor by data collection and interpretive biases. When reproduced by different investigators, the studies must yield consistent results. While there is agreement that cigarette smoking, like most pleasures, is risky, the campaign to abolish smoking could not have been successful without claims that ETS constitutes a risk to nonsmokers. Such claims were needed to circumvent the right of smokers to smoke when the risks are confined to smokers alone. . . . Asked to quantify the hazards of ETS, and confronted with his own reputation, Sir Richard replied: "I am sorry, I know that is what you would like to be given, but the point is that these risks are small and difficult to measure directly....I am sorry not to be more helpful; you want numbers and I could give you numbers..., but what does one make of them?...These hazards cannot be directly measured." 9 He declined any quantification of ETS risks, with the clear implication that quantification is impossible. The anachronism of the tobacco culture and economy may be slated for extinction in a nurturing civilization, but it should not happen under the tyranny of a deception falsely disguised as scientific fact. The deception is doubly surprising, when the wilfully flawed SGR runs against the US law that requires "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by a government agency" 10 Violation of research integrity is reprehensible enough at the hands of individual researchers. It becomes much more reprehensible when perpetrated by public authorities for whatever reason, where not only science and truth are violated, but the sacred trust of a democratic government is irreparably breached. The Brussels Declaration Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT