CNS-MediaWatch: Aug 16, 2007

Smoking Major Cause of TB Death

Pak Tribune

August 16, 2007

Pakistan

News- Smoking Major Cause of TB Death

ISLAMABAD:Smoking is to blame for half the tuberculosis deaths among men, according to new research published on Friday, highlighting a neglected link between tobacco and the killer lung disease.

Most big studies into smoking and health until now have been conducted in developed countries where tuberculosis (TB) has been uncommon for more than half a century.

As a result, the connection with TB -- which is still endemic across much of Asia and Africa -- has been greatly underestimated, according to the authors of the first major study on how smoking causes death in India.

"This is something that causes at least a few hundred thousand deaths a year worldwide...but the relationship had been forgotten and ignored," says Richard Peto of the University of Oxford, co-author of the study.

The study also predicted the number of men dying from smoking related illnesses in India could double to more than a million a year by 2025.

Three quarters of male Indian smokers who become ill with TB would not have done so if they had not smoked, Peto and colleagues said in a paper published in medical journal The Lancet.
Their findings suggest that in some parts of the world the main way smoking kills is not via cancer and heart disease, but by damaging the lung's defenses against chronic TB infection.

About a billion people worldwide are carrying live TB infection in their lungs, but if they do not smoke then most will never become seriously ill. Smoking increases the danger that any infection will get out of control and cause clinical TB, which can kill and spreads easily to other people.

TB causes about 1.6 million deaths worldwide each year, including more than a million in Asia and 400,000 in Africa. India has more TB deaths than any other country.

The study by the Epidemiological Research Center in Madras, India -- with funding from the UK Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK -- compared the smoking habits of 43,000 men who had died of various diseases in the late 1990s with the habits of 35,000 living men.
It found that smokers were about four times as likely to become ill with TB as non-smokers, and consequently four times as likely to die from the disease.

Vendhan Gajalakshmi of the Epidemiological Research Center, who led the research, estimates almost 200,000 Indians die each year from TB because of smoking -- half of them are still only in their 30s, 40s or early 50s.

Smokers of both Western-style cigarettes and "bidis" -- thin Indian cigarettes containing small amounts of tobacco wrapped in a greenish-brown leaf -- are similarly at risk.

Overall, smoking currently causes some 700,000 deaths a year in India, 550,000 among men aged 25-69. The number of deaths could double by 2025 if current smoking patterns persist, the authors conclude.

online available at- http://paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?187131

Tobacco Act may trip on skulls

Times of India

August 17, 2007

Mumbai

News- Tobacco Act may trip on skulls

The amendment to dilute the tobacco control law has been dealt a severe blow with the findings of a recent study by the Healis-Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health. The skull and bones symbol, an integral part of tobacco advertising, was termed to hurt religious sentiments by the central government and certain amendments in the Tobacco Act were proposed.

However, a house-to-house survey in 16 different localities has noted that the symbol does not hurt religious sensibilities. The survey was conducted by the Healis-Sekhsaria Institute located in CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai. Cabinet minister, Pranab Mukharjee, had recently said that the skull and bones symbol should not be used on tobacco product packages because it hurt religious sensibilities, even though such a symbol is required under the Cigerette and Other Tobacco Products Act passed by the Parliament in 2003.

The rules governing the display of skull and bones and pictorial warnings were notified on July 5, 2006. Because of this assertion, it was proposed that the Act should be amended by the Parliament. However, the study has shown that the two largest religions in India would not be hurt with the sign of the skull and crossbones if and when put on tobacco products. When asked the question, If you see this sign (the bone and skull symbol), placed on a tobacco products to indicate the risk associated with that products use, would it affect your religious sensibilities, 89% respondents replied no, with 9% undecided.

The survey was designed to have similar representation of the two largest religious groups in India, and the responses were virtually identical in the two religious communities. In response to another question, If you see this sign on a product, what does it tell you?, close to 87% responded said that it showed the product is dangerous to use, while 12% did not understand the symbol. Similar questions on the use of a picture of a dead body on tobacco product elicited the response no on religious sensibilities from 68% and not sure from 13% of respondents.

In a separate study conducted among cancer patients attending the city-based Tata Memorial Hospital, all patients replied that if the symbol skull and crossbones was there on the tobacco products, they would have understood the risk to health associated with the use of the products much better. Reading a mere warning that this product is injurious to health they thought, its use might cause an ulcer or boil at the most, but in no way a life threatening disease.

The rules for the pictorial package warning portion of the the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, along with pictures like a cancer patient and a dead body were notified on July 5, 2006 and were to come into effect on February 1, 2007. Because of numerous representations from the tobacco industry, the date was extended to June 1, 2007. However, further pressure from the industry persuaded Cabinet members to send the law to Parliament for an amendment to remove the skull and bones, on the basis that it hurt religious sentiments, which the survey did not find.

online available at- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/India_Business/Tobacco_Act_may_trip_on_skulls/articleshow/2286424.cms