Tobacco still a major killer

May 31st was observed as world No tobacco day. Comcom specially brings you some of the clippings from the Indian press. A welcome sign this year is that there are more indepth scientific articles rather than formal coverage of functions, seminars or events.

Is your school kid smoking on the sly?

They know it's injurious. They know it isn't meant for them. Yet smoking is increasingly becoming an intrinsic part of a school kids almanac. According to a survey conducted by a team of AIIMS doctors, nearly 15 per cent of all students between classes VII and X in three well-known public schools of Delhi smoke cigarettes. This despite the fact that more than 90 per cent of the kids knew smoking caused cancer, 80 per cent were aware that cigarettes cause addiction and even passive smoking is harmful.

Ironically, these alarming statistics came to light a day before World-No Tobacco Day. The survey conducted by the doctors involved around 900 students between 12 and 16 years of age, from the three schools. Once the summer vacations are over, these doctors are planning to quiz students from other schools also but they say they expect the situation to be more or less the same.

A couple of months ago, 17-year-old student of a government school Pawan Kumar underwent an emergency angioplasty after he suffered a massive heart attack. Pawan had been smoking since he was 10.

According to Tulika Seth of the Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital who is a member of the survey team: ``The figures are quite alarming. Though we knew some school students smoked, the fact that even 12-year-olds were into the habit came as a shock. Undoubtedly there is a growing incidence of cigarette smoking among school children but the average age for acquiring the habit is also coming down rapidly.''

And just why do these kids smoke? Peer pressure, the desire to be ``in the group'', is the foremost reason, says Seth. Non-smokers are offered cigarettes by their smoker friend and they usually accept to avoid being ridiculed. About 21 per cent of the students said they had been offered a cigarette by a friend either in school or at a get-together outside.

Besides, cigarettes are easily available and accessible to anybody, irrespective of age. ``In the west, selling cigarettes to a person below 18 years is a crime and vendors often ask for an identity card if they suspect the buyer is below 18 years. Besides, cigarettes are quite cheap in India and students can easily purchase a packet from their pocket money,'' Seth said.

Obviously this questionable hobby can only lead to dire consequences. Seth said those who begin to smoke in their mid-teens and gradually increase their daily intake are likely to get lung cancer by the time they are in their mid- thirties. It takes about 20 years of regular smoking to contract cancer but for those who begin very early, it may take lesser time. Moreover, smoking may give these students hypertension, heart disease, recurrent lung infections, ear infections, asthma and cough.

CHENNAI:

It is the only product when used as directed kills you

If this scary warning against smoking by the former ``Winston'' man, Allan Landers fails to impress one on the World No Tobacco Day today, Chennai's figures should do the talking.

During 1995-97, out of the 48,000 deaths (of people of more than 25 years of age) in Chennai due to medical causes, one third was caused by smoking.

This evidence, that emerged from a study of the Epidemiology Division and Cancer Registry at the Adyar Cancer Institute and the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, University of Oxford, also suggests that the share of deaths due to the entire range of tobacco use is still higher.

Despite the ominous results, the habit has trapped 41 per cent of adults in Chennai. The interim analysis of data collected from 200,000 adults in Chennai (urban) and 70,000 in rural Tamil Nadu as part of another study, shows that 48 per cent of men in the rural areas smoke. About nine per cent of adults in Chennai and 16 per cent in rural Tamil Nadu had the tobacco chewing habit, another dangerous way of using the carcinogenic substance.

According to Dr. C. K. Gajalakshmi, Head of the Epidemiology and Cancer Registry, Cancer Institute, the campaign against tobacco use should be intensified as 50 per cent of all male cancers are caused by tobacco. Besides cancer, smoking increases the risk of respiratory and cardio-vascular diseases.

Jolted by the 11,000 daily deaths caused by tobacco use worldwide, the World Health Organisation has launched a publicity campaign that seeks to dispel the ``glamorous, healthy, sophisticated and wealthy'' image of smokers projected by multi- billion dollar advertising blitzkrieg of the tobacco industry.

In her address for the Day, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Secretary General, WHO, says that the ``No Tobacco Day'' campaign's focus on entertainment, sports and film industry this year is to fight this.

CHANDIGARH:

Crafty boost to a killer

Every year the world celebrates May 31 as No-Tobacco Day. The campaign against tobacco largely owes its origin to the first official report of the US Surgeon-General in 1964 who described smoking as a health hazard of sufficient importance and identified many causal relationships and smoking-disease associations. Several US Surgeons-General's reports have been published since then and more than one- third of a century later, smoking remains the leading cause of preventable premature death.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION -PUBLIC HEARING

4 million go up in smoke every year

The international drive against cigarette smoking will turn a new corner in October when the World Health Organisation (WHO) opens its first-ever public hearing on global tobacco control.

Those invited to appear before this hearing at the WHO's Geneva headquarters include medical experts, non- governmental organisations (NGOs), tobacco farmers and the tobacco industry.

"This is a historic opportunity for everyone, including those in the tobacco industry to present their views on a major public issue that is of great concern to us", said Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO's Director-General.

According to a WHO press release, the hearings on October 12 and 13 are part of the international body's effort to seek a wider spectrum of opinion as it tries to secure support for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) the world's first public health convention that attempts to address such concerns as tobacco advertising and promotion, agriculture diversification of tobacco plantations, cigarette smuggling, taxes and subsidies.

The FCTC, which was unveiled last May at the World Health Assembly, has been welcomed by health experts and the anti- smoking lobby as a necessary legal instrument to curb smoking and take on the powerful tobacco industry.

"It is clear that there is enormous support for participation in the process", admitted an adviser at the Pan American Health Organisation's Department on Prevention and Control of Tobacco use.

But while they wait for the FCTC to make a further dent in the global cigarette habit, the anti-smoking lobby has a reason to feel happy about its achievements so far. This month, the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute (WWI) revealed in a report that the world was turning away from smoking.

"After a century-long build-up in cigarette smoking, the world is turning away from cigarettes following the US lead. In 1999 cigarettes smoked per person in the USA fell by a staggering 8 per cent and for the world as a whole by more than three per cent", declared the report, titled "World Kicking the Cigarette Habit".

The drop in the USA has been significant over the last two decades, it added, where the number of cigarettes smoked per person annually fell from a high of 2,810 in 1980 to a 1,633 in 1999 a decline of 42 per cent.

Worldwide, on the other hand, there has been an 11 per cent fall over the last 10 years, from a high of 1,027 cigarettes smoked per person annually in 1990 to 915 in 1999. What impressed the WWI were the declines in nearly all the major cigarette consuming countries, "including such bastions of smoking as France, China and Japan". Quoting the US Department of Agriculture's world tobacco database, the report noted that the number of cigarettes smoked per person in France annually had dropped by 19 per cent since Peaking in 1985, 8 per cent in China since 1990, and 4 per cent in Japan since 1992.

In the USA, the drop in smoking has been attributed to a number of reasons a growing awareness about the health- damaging effects of smoking, rising cigarette prices, rising cigarette taxes, aggressive anti-smoking campaigns and a decline in the social acceptability of smoking.

Health experts like Selin do not consider the current drop in smoking as a blow to the tobacco industry. "The world's biggest markets, including China, India and other parts of Asia, remain largely untapped", And she expects the tobacco industry to target these markets with aggressive promotion campaigns. "In most of these markets, tobacco remains unregulated, meaning that tobacco companies can engage in promotional activities that would never be allowed in many developed countries.

Narendra Wagle, of the Association for Consumer Action on Safety and Health in India, agrees. "Multinational corporations with their huge resources and promotional skills could cause aggravation of health problems in India", he observes.

For Wagle, the opening up of the Indian economy would help spread this "killer tobacco disease". Currently, according to the WHO, tobacco kills four million people annually, and that toll is due to rise to 10 million deaths per year by 2030. "We have to act fast and we have to move ahead in a responsible manner if we want to save lives", says Dr Derek Yach, the head of the WHO's Tobacco Control Programme. (IPS)