HEADLINES

• David Cameron is back on the cigarettes
• Parents urged to step out when smoking
• Heart attack complications more likely for women smokers
• Wales: A classroom of children try smoking every day
• WHO chief slams tobacco industry tactics

• David Cameron is back on the cigarettes

  David Cameron is back on cigarettes after failed attempts to quit smoking.

  The Prime Minster, is careful not to be seen smoking in public. But a source said: “He still has the occasional cigarette.”

  Mr Cameron said at his party’s conference last week in Manchester: “We must do better on smoking and diet.”

  Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, urged the Prime Minister to get help from an NHS stop-smoking service.

  She said: “The counselling and medicines they provide quadruple smokers’ chances of successfully quitting. Being Prime Minister is very stressful and I’m not surprised David Cameron has reverted back to smoking.”

  Source: The People, 09 October 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/qLW80T

• Parents urged to step out when smoking

  Smokefree North West has teamed up with children’s charity Barnardo’s to urge parents to step out of the house when smoking.

  They are using a chemical soup kit, complete with cooking pot and fake hazardous liquids, to show parents some of the harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke.

  Catherine Cairns, children’s centre worker at Sale West Children’s Centre, said after a demonstration: “I was shocked to hear that there are more than 4,000 chemicals in a cigarette. I’ve learnt lots of new things today and I really enjoyed the Chemical Soup demonstration because I thought it was provocative and engaging."

  Abdul Razzaq, NHS Trafford’s director of public health, said: “Smoking around children is responsible for at least 34,000 preventable GP and hospital visits across the north west every year. In enclosed spaces it exposes their vulnerable lungs and bodies to harmful toxins. Parents and other family members may not know that many of the harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke are invisible. This new community activity will help highlight the dangers and show that there is a way to prevent harm; go right outside the house to help protect children from secondhand smoke.”

  Source: Messenger, 07 October 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/ngzbxZ

• Heart attack complications more likely for women smokers

  New research shows that smokers have heart attacks earlier than nonsmokers, and female smokers are also much more likely than male smokers to have complications after a heart attack.
  
  "Female smokers after a heart attack have about a two and a half times greater event rate -- things like recurrent heart attacks -- over a six-month follow-up," says researcher Elizabeth Jackson, MD, MPH. Jackson is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center, Ann Arbor.
  
  While Jackson discourages both men and women from smoking, the new study finds that women smokers do much worse in that period after an attack than do men smokers.
  
  Exactly why women smokers fare worse with heart attack complications was not addressed in the study, Jackson said.
  
  There are a number of possible reasons, she says, " A woman's body may respond differently to smoking than does a man's.One is that women's coronary arteries are typically smaller than men's. Smaller blood clots may block the vessels and trigger a heart attack."
  
  The research was published online in the American Journal of Cardiology.

  Source: WebMD, 07 October 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/oNKe7t

• Wales: A classroom of children try smoking every day

  A classroom of children is experimenting with smoking in Wales every day, a charity warned.

  Figures published by ASH Wales, ahead of a major conference on alcohol and tobacco, said 38 children who had never smoked before, are trying cigarettes daily.

  The worrying figures come as Wales’ chief medical officer Dr Tony Jewell’s annual report welcomed a drop in the overall number of 15 and 16-year-olds who smoke in Wales.

  The Health Behaviours in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey found about 14,000 children and teenagers, aged 11 to 15, who have never smoked before try smoking a year in Wales. This is equivalent to 269 a week or 38 a day.

  Carole Morgan-Jones, acting chief executive of ASH Wales, said: “These figures are worrying. We know young people progress quite quickly from experimenting with tobacco to regular use and as they get older they develop nicotine addiction.”

  “This is particularly concerning because early uptake of smoking is associated with heavier smoking patterns and a higher probability of becoming ill from a smoking-related disease in later life. It illustrates why prevention programmes aimed at young people are so important. Breaking the cycle of childhood addiction to tobacco products is necessary to reduce the ongoing health, economic and social problems caused by tobacco in Wales.”

  Source: Wales Online, 10 October 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/o790Ys

• WHO chief slams tobacco industry tactics

  The World Health Organization's Director General has urged governments to unite against "big tobacco", accusing the industry of dirty tricks, bullying and immorality in its quest to keep people smoking.

  WHO director-general Margaret Chan accused tobacco firms of using lawsuits to try and subvert national laws and international conventions aimed at curbing cigarette sales.

  "It is horrific to think that an industry known for its dirty tricks and dirty laundry could be allowed to trump what is clearly in the public's best interests," Chan said at a WHO meeting in the Philippine capital.

  Chan cited legal actions by the tobacco industry against anti-smoking measures in Australia and Uruguay, saying these were "scare tactics" intended to frighten other countries from following suit.

  "It is hard for any country to bear the financial burden of this kind of litigation, but most especially so for small countries," she said.

  "Big tobacco can afford to hire the best lawyers and PR firms that money can buy. Big money can speak louder than any moral, ethical or public health argument and can trample even the most damning scientific evidence."

  "I urge all these countries to stand firm together, do not bow to pressure, we must never allow the tobacco industry to get the upper hand," she said.

  Source: Herald Sun, 10 October 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/o93WbU