Fire-safe cigarette delay 'costing lives'

Anti-smoking campaigners say lives will be lost because of a delay in bringing in new self-extinguishing cigarettes.

So called fire-safe cigarettes burn out quickly when dropped, meaning they are less likely to cause fires in the home.

They were due to be introduced across the EU later this year, but work on developing an EU standard is running at least six months behind schedule.

Deborah Arnott, of anti-smoking group ASH, said the cigarettes would mean a "significant decline" in fire deaths.

More than 100 people die in the UK every year from fires caused by cigarettes which are dropped or discarded without being extinguished.

Fire-safe cigarettes, which have barriers of flame-proof paper, meaning they burn themselves out, are already the only kind on sale in most US states and in Canada and Australia.

The 27 EU member states gave the go-ahead in November 2007 for self-extinguishing cigarettes to be introduced.

Ms Arnott said they should be introduced by manufacturers across the EU immediately.

She added: "If they were, then basically we should see a significant decline in the number of smoking related fires. These fires kill at least one person a day in Europe."

Christopher Ogden, from the Tobacco Manufacturers Association, said such urgency would not be practical.

"If the manufacturers introduced these new cigarettes in the European market, only to be told a few months later 'No, no, that's not the standard, we want this standard', then they'd have to go through the whole process of changing the project design all over again," he said.

"So we can't make the move until we have certainty."

Source: BBC News, 08 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/cVYgEN

Smoking cessation increases cardiac health

Giving up smoking after a heart attack gives patients about the same level of benefit as taking lipid-lowering drugs such as statins, or other invasive procedures.

Cardiologists in Tel Aviv, Israel, examined 13 years of data on more than 1500 men, aged 65 years or younger, who had been discharged from hospital in 1992-93 following their first acute myocardial infarction (MI). More than half were current smokers, 20% were ex-smokers, and 20% had never smoked.

Of those who were smokers at the time of their MI, 35% were able to successfully quit smoking and to abstain over the following decade.

Smokers who continued smoking after their MI had the highest risk of death even after socioeconomic status, other cardiovascular risk factors and medical treatment were taken into account.

Compared with never-smokers, men who had stopped smoking before their MI had a 50% lower mortality rate than current smokers. However, even giving up smoking after an MI brought considerable benefits – these men still had a 37% lower mortality rate than the men who had continued smoking.

Persistent smokers who managed to cut down the number of cigarettes they smoked still saw a benefit. Those who cut down by five cigarettes a day still reduced their risk of dying within the following 13 years by 18%. But the researchers warn that patients should still be urged to stop completely to reduce their risk of, for example, cancer and lung disease.

The authors comment: “The novel aspect in our study is that it is the first to show the benefit of a reduction in smoking. We would like people to consider cutting down as an initial step before complete cessation, especially those who find it impossible to quit right away.”

Separate research, published in this week’s Annals of Internal Medicine, concludes that using nicotine patches for longer than the 8 weeks recommended by manufacturers increases quitters’ chances of success.

Participants who used nicotine patches for 24 weeks were about twice as likely to succeed in their attempt to quit as those who used them for 8 weeks and were then switched to placebo patches. After a year, there was little difference between the groups, except that those who had used the patches were 27% less likely to have had ‘lapses’ of more than seven consecutive days.

The authors say: “Our data suggest that the many smokers who relapse while trying to quit will be especially helped by extended treatment, which appears to make it easier for smokers to ‘get back on the wagon’ after a small smoking slip, instead of having it turn into a full-blown relapse.”

The research is in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Source: OnMedica, 04 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bFMITI

Gates Foundation ramps up tobacco control efforts in Africa

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is stepping up the fight against tobacco with a $7 million grant to the American Cancer Society which follows a $10 million grant to the World Health Organization in December.

Both are aimed at curbing the tobacco industry's inroads in Africa, where cancer is emerging as a serious public health threat in addition to diseases such as malaria, AIDS and TB.

The $7 million, five-year grant to the American Cancer Society (ACS), which has taken on a more global role recently, will go toward managing a health coalition called the African Tobacco Control Consortium.

Consortium members include the ACS, Africa Tobacco Control Regional Initiative, Africa Tobacco Control Alliance, Framework Convention Alliance, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

The consortium will work in 46 countries of sub-Saharan Africa to reduce tobacco use by helping implement policies such as advertising bans, tobacco tax increases, graphic warning labels and promoting smoke free environments, in line with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the world's first public health treaty.

The World Health Organization started a new tobacco control effort in Africa with the help of a $10 million grant from the Gates Foundation late last year. Its goal is to prevent tobacco use from becoming as prevalent in Africa as it is in other parts of the world.

If tobacco use continues to grow at its current rate, it will kill more than 8 million people a year in 20 years, and more than 80 percent of them will be in developing countries, WHO predicts.

"Tobacco breeds poverty, killing people in their most productive years," said Dr. Ala Alwan, WHO assistant director-general for noncommunicable diseases and mental health. It consumes family and health-care budgets, and where resources are already scarce, "money spent on tobacco products is money not spent on such essentials as education, food and medicine."

Source: The Seattle Times, 03 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/b5oIlS

Scotland: Fire service and NHS team up to prevent fires caused by smoking

Strathclyde Fire and Rescue have teamed up with the NHS to encourage people to stop smoking in an initiative jointly aimed at cutting fires and improving people's health.

Strathclyde Fire and Rescue officers who visit homes to offer fire safety advice will also hand a NHS smoking-cessation pack to householders where it is deemed relevant. The fire service has launched the scheme in partnership with NHS Health Scotland.

Lewis Ramsay, Strathclyde Fire and Rescue’s Assistant Chief Officer of Community Safety, said: "Fire does discriminate and a number of lifestyle choices including smoking feature regularly as contributory factors in serious house fires, many of which involve fatal or non-fatal casualties.

"Health and fire issues are inextricably linked and I am very pleased indeed to work closely with NHS Health Scotland in this innovative campaign. I am confident that our approach will be effective and look forward to monitoring progress over coming months."

The fire service delivers around 10,000 free Home Fire Safety Visits (HFSVs) across the Strathclyde region each year. Under the new scheme fire officers themselves will not offer health advice, but will be able to direct smokers to Smokeline, NHS Health Scotland's freephone smoking cessation advice line.

All fire stations will be issued with supplies of the Smokeline promotional card, a passive smoking leaflet, and smoking cessation posters for use in Home Fire Safety Visits and community safety talks.

Andrew Harris, Health Improvement Programme Manager for tobacco at NHS Health Scotland, also welcomed the partnership. He said: "Smoking currently causes more than 13,000 deaths each year in Scotland. Second hand smoke in the home is also a major health risk, especially for young children.

"So when you consider that cigarettes also cause so many house fires, it makes a lot of sense for health services and fire services to work together to encourage people to stop smoking.

"NHS Health Scotland is delighted to be working with Strathclyde Fire and Rescue to encourage thousands of households to go smokefree."

Source: STV, 05 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bZcJ3p

School set for stop smoking clinic

A dedicated clinic to help youngsters stop smoking could be up and running at a Lincolnshire School by the end of this year.

The Federick Gough School is currently training a team of officers, who will be employed by the school to provide the service to youngsters.

School headteacher, Ben Lawrence, said: "We had a Choices nurse who came and gave smoking cessation advice.

"Now, we are working to develop our own team with the help of the health trust. Within the year, we will have our own, fully trained smoking councillors."

Mr Lawrence said the last adolescent lifestyle survey, carried out in 2008, revealed the number of smokers at the school had halved in the previous three years.

He said: "Around four per cent of our 14 to 16-year-olds now claim that they smoke.

"I thought eight per cent was really high, four per cent is pretty low but it is about doing as much as we possibly can to stop kids from smoking."

In 2008, NHS North Lincolnshire revealed to put smoking clinics in every secondary school in the region by this year.

They were to be rolled out under the Children and Young People's Plan 2008, at a cost of £14,000.

The new clinics were to be set up to operate alongside the 13 existing Choice clinics which are located across North Lincolnshire, and offer advice on lifestyle choices and personal health.

Source: thisisscunthorpe, 05 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/9HmLkb

Saudi Arabia: Alarming rise in number of smokers

The number of smokers in Saudi Arabia has increased to six million, including 600,000 women. There are also 772,000 teenage smokers, including intermediate and secondary school students.

According to Dr Mohammed Al Baddah, supervisor of an anti-smoking programme at the health ministry, cigarette smoking in the kingdom was growing at an alarming rate.

Saudi Arabia is the fourth largest importer of cigarettes in the world. Thousands of workers die annually as a result of inhaling the smoke of fellow smokers during working hours.

According to statistics published by the Saudi Charitable Society to Combat Smoking on its website, cigarette smoking was the main reason behind the death of 13,544 people in Saudi Arabia in 2008.

Dr Ashraf Abdul Gayoom Amir, a consultant, said the number of smokers was likely to increase to 10 million due to lack of proper education and counselling about the bad effects of cigarette smoking.

A recent poll, which included smokers and nonsmokers, revealed that an estimated 98 per cent would like to ban smoking at their work environments.

According to Amir, a vast majority of smokers are in desperate need of aid and of medical support, hence the role of doctors in supporting the desire (of smokers) to succeed in quitting the habit is very important.

He said that a doctor’s advice could help five per cent of smokers quit the habit of smoking.

Source: Khaleej Times, 07 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/cNH9HP