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ASH Daily News- Sat 20 – Mon 22 October 2001

HEADLINES
New scare over Zyban
Hi-tech scanner for East Midlands
No 'cancer explosion' predicted


FULL TEXT

New scare over Zyban

The Mail on Sunday reports that French doctors have been warned not to prescribe the anti-smoking drug Zyban after research revealed that the risks of taking the drug far outweighed the benefits. A study, published in the French journal Prescrire, concludes that doctors should offer nicotine replacement instead of Zyban.

The Mail on Sunday article also raises further alarm by suggesting that Zyban “could be linked to more than 500 deaths” in the UK. The article quotes Professor Alisdair Breckenbridge, chief adviser to the Committee on the Safety of Medicines, as saying that inaccuracies in the way suspected adverse reactions are reported means that 90 per cent are missed. Currently 53 deaths in Britain have been linked to Zyban. However, as the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline points out, there is no proof that Zyban has caused any of these deaths.

Source: Mail on Sunday 21/10/01

Comment: This is a further example of alarmist reporting by the Mail on Sunday. Yet again, the paper appears to deliberately overplay the risk of adverse effects from taking Zyban while ignoring the enormous risk to health of continuing to smoke.


Hi-tech scanner for East Midlands

A large scanner capable of detecting drugs, tobacco and explosives
has been brought in at East Midlands airport.
The scanner is effectively a huge mobile X-ray machine that can scan
a line of cargo containers at once.

It has been developed to detect anything organic, such as drugs,
tobacco and explosives in checks which in the past could only be done
by hand.
A spokesman for the East Midlands Airport said it is the first
regional airport to use the scanner to detect illegal goods.

The machine can scan a cargo load in an hour
It would take 45 minutes manually to check an average cargo container
by hand for illegal tobacco or explosives.

The American-made scanner can look at a series of 25 cargo containers
in less than an hour.
The scanner is already used at docks in the UK to check lorries
entering the country from Europe or other regions

John Powell of customs and excise said: "It has been very successful
in Dover and other ports.

"We have seized millions of cigarettes and masses of class A drugs
such as heroin and cocaine using the scanner."

Another 20 scanners will arrive at other regional airports across the
country in the near future.

Source: BBC Online
Date: Saturday, October 20, 2001
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_1609000/1609233.stm



No 'cancer explosion' predicted

A leading cancer expert says the perception that the world faces an
enormous surge in cancer cases is misleading.

Professor Julian Peto, head of Epidemiology at the Institute of
Cancer Research in London, was speaking at the opening of a major
cancer conference in Lisbon.

While the total numbers of cases was increasing, he said, this was
due largely to population increase, an ageing population and the
elimination of "competing diseases".

He said: "Take away the cancer deaths caused by tobacco and the
reality is that deaths from cancers linked to other causes are stable
or falling."

Data from national statistics shows that the incidence of cancer has
risen by around 20% in men and 30% in women since 1970.

Top priority for doctors, he said, was to continue persuading their
patients to give up smoking.

"In 1970 Britain had the worst total death rates in the world from tobacco.

"Then half the adults stopped smoking and tobacco deaths in middle
age halved from 80,000 a year to 35,000 a year in 2000."

There have been increases in some cancers over the past decade - for
example, testicular cancer and Hodgkin's lymphoma, and some cancers,
such as prostate cancer, are being increasingly detected.

The most important risk factor for cancer after smoking is obesity,
responsible for approximately 7% of all cancer deaths among
non-smokers in Europe.


Source: BBC Online
Date: Saturday, October 20, 2001
URL:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/health/newsid_1609000/1609044.stm





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