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'Tobacco' the Poison they're giving us !!!
Wednesday, October 6, 1999 Published at 11:52 GMT 12:52 UK
World
Smoking deaths epidemic in developing world
Smoking could kill 200-300 million people in the next 25 years
Smoking is set to cause a cancer epidemic in the developing world, according to the World Health Organisation.
Smoking levels are on the increase in these regions, especially among young people, as tobacco firms are pushing into new markets.
Their move into the developing world comes as the firms have been stung by a decline in smoking and a series of law suits in the United States.
By the mid-2020s, the WHO predicts, 85% of all smokers will come from the world's poorer countries.
If the WHO forecasts are correct, smoking could become the world's biggest killer over the next 20 years, causing more deaths than HIV, tuberculosis,
road accidents, murder and suicide put together.
Rising death toll
According to the organisation smoking-related diseases are killing 4 million people a year worldwide and that number will rise to 10 million a year in the
next 25 years, of these, seven million deaths will occur in developing countries.
There are many tobacco farms in the developing world
Rising death tolls are also expected in countries such as China and Japan, where between 50% and 60 % of adults are now smokers.
WHO director-general Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland believes tobacco companies are trying "to build up the market in the young groups in order to get as many as
possible addicted before they are even grown-ups."
The organisation hopes to avert a "smoking epidemic" with an international convention to impose taxes on cigarettes worldwide and introduce global standards
to restrict tobacco advertising, including on satellite television and the Internet.
At a recent conference, 30 health ministers and other senior health officials from every country in the Western Hemisphere agreed to back the proposed
Convention on Tobacco Control.
The draft should be ready by 2003.
But many developing countries fear they will lose foreign investment if they clamp down on smoking.
But the health arguments are strong. According to the chief of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), George A.O. Alleyne, smoking is now the main
preventable cause of death in the Americas - killing more than 600,000 people a year.
One in three people over 15 in the region smokes, he says.
But he admits that some tobacco-growing nations and companies are reluctant to tackle the problem.
He said "economic interests" in some member states were "among the principal factors that hinder the task".
The tobacco industry has invested heavily in the developing world
His report noted that smoking is encouraged by the low cost of cigarettes - between 50 cents and $1.30 a packet in Latin America - and by the lack of
information about the damage it causes.
Tobacco cultivation averages 25,000 acres in Peru, Colombia, Chile and Guatemala, more than 50,000 acres in Argentina and Cuba, and more than 700,000 acres
in Brazil.
Brazil is the world's third-largest tobacco producer and exports almost $1bn worth a year.
However, Brazil, Chile and Costa Rica have passed laws and decrees creating smoke-free environments, compulsory warning labels on cigarette packs and
controls on advertising targeting children.
PAHO official Enrique Madrigal says that multinational tobacco firms and national tobacco companies in countries such as Brazil have targeted young people to boost sales.
"There is a serious threat that the tobacco industries are focusing directly upon the developing countries with all their guns," he warns.
But many of the WHO's 190 member states' economies depend on tobacco exports.
And the chairman of British American Tobacco says the WHO is attempting to impose Western anti-smoking prejudices on countries where malnutrition and AIDS are greater health concerns.
Local investment
Tobacco companies have been looking to vast markets in developing countries as a way to help make up for the loss of US smokers and a $206bn settlement with US states.
The British Tobacco Manufacturing Association says the companies are essential to many local economies, as they have taken over local companies and provide jobs.
Tobacco companies point out that many of them finance social and cultural projects.
According to Richard Tate, president of the International Tobacco Growers' Association (ITGA), tobacco growing and processing provides 33 million people with their livelihood, mostly in the developing world.
But the WHO hopes to convince its members that the alleged economic benefits of tobacco are "illusory and misleading".
In April, a WHO report - Supporting the Tobacco Industry is Bad Economics - claimed that health costs associated with smoking more than offset the economic benefits of tobacco cultivation and ultimately have "a negative bearing on the economy of the region".
Tuesday, September 8, 1998 Published at 11:20 GMT 12:20 UK
Health
The UK has experienced a big drop in middle age death rates
Britain has experienced one of the biggest falls worldwide in middle age death rates because of a big drop in smoking in recent years, according to a leading scientist.
Professor Richard Peto, professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at Oxford University, told the British Association of Science conference that many thousands of middle aged Britons were alive today because they had given up smoking.
Professor Peto said that, in 1965, 42% of men died before the age of 70 and nearly half of these deaths were due to smoking.
By 1995 the death rate dropped to 28% and only a third were attributed to tobacco.
Professor Peto said: "The decrease in mortality is being driven by a decrease in tobacco."
Class differences
Smoking was also the cause of most of the differences in death rates between the rich and poor, Professor Peto added, because the people from lower social classes and on smaller incomes are more likely to take up the habit.
He told the conference that the best way to reduce death rates worldwide was to target tobacco - which along with the HIV virus was the biggest killer. Approximately 100 million people will die from smoking worldwide over the next 20 years.
Professor Peto said: "You can save far more lives by a moderate reduction in the big causes of death than by a large reduction in smaller causes. Tobacco is still the biggest killer we've got."
"Half of all smokers are killed by tobacco, but stopping works amazingly well; even in middle age smokers who stop avoid most of their risk of death from tobacco and stopping before middle age avoids almost all the risk."
Smoking is linked to premature death
Clive Bates, director of Action on Smoking and Health, welcomed Professor Peto's comments as yet more evidence that smoking was harmful and linked to premature death.
Mr Bates said: "It is good news. It shows that if you do give up smoking you will get a health benefit and that smokers are not irretrievably doomed."
Child death rates falling
Professor Peto said infant deaths had decreased at amazing rates in the last 100 years, with only about 1% of children worldwide dying before their fifth birthday.
The global priority was now shifting to the prevention of deaths in middle age.
Cigarettes: a complex cocktail of chemicals
Cigarettes are full of additives
Smoking a cigarette is one of the most unhealthy things a human can do.
Cigarette smoke has been directly linked to an increased risk of many diseases including cancer, heart disease and even sexual impotence.
Nicotine constricts the blood vessels, raising blood pressure and increasing the strain on the heart.
Thirty per cent of all cancer deaths can be attributed to smoking. Cancers other than lung cancer which are linked to smoking include:
Cervical cancer
Cancers of the mouth, lip and throat
Pancreatic cancer
Bladder cancer
Kidney cancer
Stomach cancer
Liver cancer
Leukaemia
But cigarettes are not just made of tar, tobacco and nicotine.
More than 600 additives can legally be added to tobacco products.
These include coffee extract, sugar, vanilla, cocoa, menthol, oil from clove stems, caramel and chorophyll, the compound that gives plants their green colour.
Many appear to be present simply to add flavour.
But they may also have more sinister effects. For example, cocoa when burned in a cigarette produces bromine gas that dilates the airways of the lung, and increases the body's ability to absorb nicotine.
Menthol is also suspected of enabling the smoker to inhale more easily by numbing the throat.
Researchers claim that other additives have been expertly developed by tobacco companies to manipulate the delivery of nicotine with extreme precision.
Techniques employed by tobacco companies include:
Addition of ammonia compounds, which speed the delivery of nicotine to smokers by raising the alkalinity of tobacco smoke. These compounds also distort the measurement of tar in cigarettes, giving lower readings than would actually be inhaled by the smoker;
Addition of chemicals, such as acetaldehyde and pyridine, that act to strengthen nicotine's impact on the brain and central nervous system.
There is also concern about the so-called "burn enhancers" that cause cigarettes to remain ignited and may lead to additional fire hazards.
The tobacco companies have also developed ways to increase the nicotine content of cigarettes. These include:
Adjustment of tobacco blends by using high-nicotine tobaccos and higher nicotine parts of tobacco leaves to raise the nicotine concentration in lower tar cigarettes;
Addition of nicotine to fortify tobacco stems, scraps and other waste materials, which are processed into reconstituted tobacco - a product that is used in signficant quantities in most major cigarette brands;
The genetic engineering of tobacco plants to substantially boost nicotine content.
Other additives may cause harm by increasing the use of tobacco.
For example, sweeteners such as sugar can also be added to cigarettes, making them more appealing to young people.
Cocoa is added to some cigarettes
A spokeswoman for the UK charity Action on Smoking and Health said: "The problem with additives is that they are not just about altering the flavour of cigarettes. Research has shown that the key purpose of putting extra additives into cigarettes is to improve their potency and ultimately their addictiveness.
"It is incredible that the tobacco industry has been allowed to get away with puting these compounds into their cigarettes without any requirement to say what they are there for."
The tobacco manufacturers argue that no compounds can be added to cigarettes without government approval, and agreed levels cannot be increased without permission.
Last Updated: Wednesday, 10 November, 2004, 18:47 GMT
Living in an anti-smoking climate
As Scotland faces up to a ban on smoking in public places, we find out about the impact of similar restrictions in other parts of the world.
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REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
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Scenes like these are a thing of the past in Ireland
The BBC correspondent in Dublin, James Helm, said the introduction of a ban in the Republic of Ireland earlier this year had led to the spectacle of smoking punters huddled outside pubs.
There has been a mixed response to the change in the law amongst the licensed trade and the issue is still a matter of debate in Irish society.
He said: "One publican in the Portherhouse Bar, where Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell went to visit, serves a lot of food and those sorts of places have done okay out of the smoking ban.
"But others where it's predominantly a drinking establishment where people go to have a pint and used to have a cigarette with their pint say they're suffering, some down as much as 15% to 20%.
"Of course, now with the winter weather coming on, it's the first real test of the smoking ban. People having to go out in the wet and the cold for a cigarette now."
"The government all along has said it's a huge success with long-term public health benefits but some of the publicans agree to differ."
As for publicans' adherence to the new law, he said: "A lot of the evidence is by its very nature anecdotal but certainly in rural areas where it's perhaps a lot more difficult to enforce this kind of law there are a lot of stories of people being seen smoking and being caught as well."
"There have been some prosecutions of publicans in one or two places but it's very difficult to enforce.
"On the whole it's been enforced pretty well and adhered to pretty well but there have been some complaints from publicans who say they are simply suffering under it."
CALIFORNIA
==============
California started the clampdown 10 years ago
BBC Scotland contributor Maggie Shiels said California had been living with smoking bans for a decade.
"California was the first state to go state-wide with the ban. In January 1998 they extended the ban to all bars and restaurants, the first state in the nation to do such a thing.
"The reason they did it was simply because of health. In California they said that 43,000 people were dying as a result of smoking-related illnesses, that's one in five people.
"The cost to the health service was $15.8bn and in terms of productivity it was $5.7bn. That's $475 per California resident or $3,331 per smoker.
"In 10 years, the Department of Health says it has seen cigarette consumption declining by 60%, smoking declining by 27%, a reduction in lung and bronchus cancer rates, nearly six times less than the rest of the country."
Many smokers remarked that they now believed they smoked less.
"They also say there is fabulous counter-culture with their little groups huddling outside the bar and they see it as something private, having their own little group that they can all bond in.
"It is seen as a nasty, nasty habit here because so few people smoke. What's interesting is they are trying to extend a lot of these bans, like not allowing you to smoke on beaches because you get so many cigarette butts and rubbish there.
"There are further efforts like not allowing you to smoke in your car if there are children there because that affects the health of the child and also not smoking in public places like parks."
THE NETHERLANDS
================
The Netherlands has introduced a public places ban
The BBC's correspondent in The Hague, Geraldine Coughlan, said the Netherlands had been adapting to a ban on smoking in public places which came into effect at the start of the year.
She said: "The hospitality sector has asked for an exemption and they've got until the end of this year to come up with some kind of proposals.
"The Netherlands has a really high number of smokers, more than 30%, that's very high in comparison with, for example, France and Belgium where 25% of people smoke. It hasn't really gone down that well.
"There's been a report that about 40% of firms are not adhering to the ban on smoking in the workplace. They are supposed to have designated areas where people can go to smoke and apparently nobody's respecting it. They are just lighting up in the workplace anyway.
"People are not allowed to smoke on trains, for instance, or on platforms but they are allowed to smoke in parts of stations where there is open air.
"People are respecting it in totally public places and there haven't been any reports of prosecutions or lots of fines."
Nov. 12.2004
Nicotine, Too, May Promote Cancer
As a new year begins, cigarettes are no doubt the focus of countless resolutions. But the highly addictive nature of nicotine makes butting out hard to do. Now research published in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation provides further impetus for smokers to kick the habit. Although tar has long been considered the carcinogenic agent in cigarettes, the new findings further suggest that nicotine and compounds derived from it may also help promote the development and progression of cancer.
Phillip Dennis of the National Cancer Institute and his colleagues exposed normal human lung cells to concentrations of nicotine a nd its derivative NKK comparable to those supplied by cigarettes. Within minutes, the team found, the so-called Akt molecular pathway became active. This pathway fosters cell growth and survival and is thus antithetical to the body's major defense against cancerous tumors: apoptosis, or programmed cell death. The researchers also identified active Akt pathways in the lungs of mice treated with NKK and in the lung tissue of smokers. The authors conclude that although nicotine is not yet considered a carcinogen, their findings might have implications for smoking cessation methods because "the risks of long-term nicotine supplementation are unknown."
--Sarah Graham
Week of Oct. 28, 2000; Vol. 158, No. 18 , p. 278
Nicotine metabolism may spawn carcinogen
John Travis
Chalk up another potential way for smoking tobacco to cause lung cancer. A new study indicates that the body can metabolize nicotine into products that the lungs subsequently may convert into a potent carcinogen.
This still speculative suggestion may pose a challenge for companies trying to develop cigarettes with a reduced risk of causing cancer. The researchers say their work doesn't imply that people trying to quit smoking should abandon the short-term use of nicotine patches and gum.
"It's a heck of a lot better to use nicotine-replacement therapy than to smoke—by far," emphasizes study coauthor Sharon E. Murphy of the University of Minnesota Cancer Center in Minneapolis.
Nicotine underlies the addictive nature of cigarettes and other tobacco products. It also indirectly contributes to their carcinogenic properties. The curing of tobacco, for example, can produce tumor-causing compounds, called nitrosamines, from nicotine. Burning tobacco, as in a cigarette, has the same result.
Pure nicotine that enters the body has not been thought to be carcinogenic. Murphy and her colleagues, however, now offer evidence that enzymes in people can convert nicotine into aminoketone, the natural precursor of NNK. Animal tests have shown that this nitrosamine causes lung cancer.
Scientists have long known that the human body initially metabolizes about 90 percent of its nicotine load into cotinine, which is then further metabolized into a variety of other compounds. In previous work, Murphy, her colleague Stephen S. Hecht, and their coworkers had found that urine of smokers and people wearing nicotine patches contains two nicotine metabolites, keto acid and hydroxy acid, but that these compounds didn't derive from cotinine.
"If you give people cotinine and look for keto acid, you don't find it," says Murphy.
Reporting in the November 7 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the investigators show that bits of liver cells, which contain nicotine-metabolizing enzymes, can convert nicotine into keto acid without going through a cotinine stage. They further demonstrate that one of the enzymes, known as cytochrome P450 2A6, participates in this process by making aminoketone, NNK's precursor.
The investigators suspect that this novel metabolic pathway also functions in the lung. There's a lung-specific enzyme similar to 2A6, notes Murphy. Her group is now investigating whether this enzyme generates aminoketone from nicotine.
The medical relevance of this newfound metabolic pathway remains unclear. Scientists don't know how much of the aminoketone generated in the body becomes the carcinogenic NNK. Indeed, people using nicotine patches don't have elevated concentrations of NNK in their urine, Hecht finds.
It's hard to prove absolute safety, but this patch study is "reassuring," says Jack Henningfield of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Henningfield, who has reviewed nicotine's safety record, notes that when people in Sweden switched to smokeless tobacco that's naturally low in nitrosamines, they drastically reduced their risk of mouth, head, and neck cancers.
"These people are still getting huge amounts of nicotine per day," says Henningfield.
However, such work doesn't dismiss the possibility that some lung cancer comes from NNK spawned in the lungs by nicotine. "It's not a major pathway in the total person. The question becomes, Is it important in a specific tissue?" says Murphy. The activity of nicotine-metabolizing enzymes varies considerably, so a subset of people might produce significant amounts of NNK, she adds.
Researchers suggest that concerns about nicotine itself may become important as companies begin to market cigarettes with tobacco prepared in ways that reduce nitrosamines. "What this [finding] implies is that even if you get tobacco free of nitrosamines, you can make a certain amount of them [in the body] just from the exposure to nicotine," notes Harold Seifried of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.
References:
Hecht, S.S. . . . and S.E. Murphy. 2000. 2'-hydroxylation of nicotine by cytochrome P450 2A6 and human liver microsomes: Formation of a lung carcinogen precursor. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97(Nov. 7.):12493-12497. Available at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/23/12493.
Sources:
Sharon E. Murphy
University of Minnesota Cancer Center
Box 806 Mayo
420 Delaware Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
From Science News, Vol. 158, No. 18, Oct. 28, 2000, p. 278.
Compromise on smoking ban
James Meikle and Patrick Wintour
Friday November 12, 2004
The Guardian
England's smoking blackspots are identified today just days before the government offers a compromise on controlling smoking that is softer than the outright bans in enclosed public places introduced by Ireland and planned for Scotland.
The Cabinet agreed a plan yesterday that would allow restaurants, pubs and offices to apply to their local authorities for licences that would allow smoking.
John Reid, the health secretary, will now have to convince the anti-smoking lobby that his proposal will cut passive smoking.
New figures show that parts of London, Manchester, Liverpool and Humberside have the worst rates for deaths from tobacco-related diseases; four in 10 of those 35 or over die as a result of their smoking.
Many still have a similar prevalence of existing smokers, suggesting continuing problems for years to come.
Manchester and Liverpool are already on the road to smoking bans and the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has made clear he wants to follow suit.
Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, who has been forthright in calling for a ban, welcomed the publication of the figures by the NHS's health development agency. "We are in the grip of a smoking epidemic: an estimated 106,000 people in the UK are dying needlessly each year because of smoking ... Smoking isn't just a national problem. These figures show clearly how our local communities are affected. I believe this will be a useful document working to tackle the prevalence of smoking in this country," he said.
Dame Yve Buckland, who chairs the agency, said: "The poorer you are, the more likely you are to smoke, you're less likely to quit and you are more likely to die from smoking-related causes."
There were "unacceptable" variations in smoking rates across the country, she said. "Over 70% of smokers say they want to give up and evidence shows that smoke-free workplaces can encourage this, and reduce the absolute prevalence of smoking by about 4%. As the largest employer in the country, we urge the NHS to lead by example on this."
The latest figures will fuel the debate over how smoking should be tackled in poorer areas.
Mr Reid angered anti-smoking campaigners in June when he said the "learned middle class" had an obsession with smoking, and that, "as my mother used to say, people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking".
There is some good news. Deaths related to smoking have fallen since estimates for 1998, based on 1995 data, put the UK figure at 120,000 annually. This represents a fall from just over one in five to just under one in six of all deaths. It is a reflection of how anti-smoking messages started to hit home in the 1980s.
But 27% of adults in England smoke, and the figures for the under-35s are far higher, suggesting improvements might not continue at the same pace. An estimated 36% of men and women aged 16 to 24 smoke, with the problem worse among women in their teens. The figure rises to 38% of men aged 25 to 34 and drops slightly for women, to 35%.
In addition, the figures for death rates take no account of passive smoking. The lowest rate for death among the over 35s from smoking-related disease (24%) was in the area of East Sussex, home to one of the oldest populations in the country.
The rate in other parts of the south coast, the west, home counties and eastern England were almost as high.
Areas with the highest death rates from smoking included north Liverpool (43%), and Tower Hamlets (42%), Southwark and Islington (both 40%) -
all in London.
Of the annual 86,500 deaths attributable to smoking in England, 62% are men.
The greatest impact of smoking is on deaths from lung cancer, with nine in 10 among men and eight in 10 among women attributable to smoking.
The following article was obtained at a Norwegian anti smoking site:
"Each time you buy a new pack of cigarettes you support an industry that makes its living by making you an addict. But YOU have the power to do what they fear most, stop buying their products!
Secret industry documents, The release of millions of pages of tobacco company internal documents as a result of litigation in the United States has offered the most startling insights into what really goes on inside the major multinationals tobacco companies.
This campaign presents a few small samples of information about the tobacco industry and its products. This should be enough for you to reconsider whatever view you had on this industry.
To illustrate our message, we have selected some of the most infamous and outrageous quotes from the tobacco industry itself.
Tobacco Industry Quotes Since the 1960s,
the tobacco companies have known that nicotine is addictive, but they’ve kept it a secret. As late as 1994, the chief executive officers of the biggest tobacco companies were very clear:
“I believe that nicotine is not addictive...
Seven CEO’s from the four majors tobacco companies in USA testified as late as in 1994, that they did not believe that nicotine is addictive.
However, the industries own internal documents show that they have known about the addiction since the sixties!
The industry documents reveal that they actually look at them selves as “nicotine-salesmen”:
“We are in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug”
Through this campaign we want to show you, that the actions (or lack of actions) of the tobacco industry are not random.
Our goal is to make you aware that there is conscious strategic thinking behind the production, marketing and selling of this product.
There are thousands of pages of internal tobacco industry documents that prove that there are several shocking facts that this industry has been trying to hide from us.
These tobacco industry quotes provide some examples of the cynical reality To keep people from stop smoking and stop buying tobacco,
the tobacco industry makes sure it’s hard. Really hard.
They manipulate nicotine levels, and nicotine is in fact more addictive than heroin:
“Smoking tobacco is more addictive than using heroin”
Ammonia and other chemicals have been added to the tobacco so the nicotine will be absorbed more rapidly and effectively into the bloodstream.
Since pure nicotine has a harsh and unpleasant flavour, sugar and other sweeteners are added to make inhaling possible.
When you keep buying tobacco, you keep sponsoring an industry that chemically manipulates their product to make you hooked:
“The secret of …………. is ammonia.”
The tobacco industry does not want young people to smoke, and insist that they only target adults. However,
internal industry documents have revealed strategies specially designed to market cigarettes to teenagers.
The tobacco industry realizes that the young represent tomorrow’s cigarette business.
As this 14-24 age group matures, they will account for a key share of the total cigarette volume- for at least the next 25 years… “They got lips, we want them” and
“If you are truly not going to sell to children, you will be out of business in 30 years..”
For decades the tobacco industry tried to deny the health risks connected to smoking.
This can no longer be denied. The connection between smoking and serious conditions like lung cancer is undeniable.
A cigarette contains over 4000 chemical substances, some found naturally in tobacco and some added.
One of the biggest multinational tobacco companies decided to share with us that the society actually saves money,
as people die younger because of smoking! Cancer seems to replace wars and famines as a “natural” cause of death, to keep the population down:
“…with a general lengthening of the expectation of life we really need something for people to die of.”
When the tobacco companies face regulations in the western world, they move to new markets.
These are countries where any kind of marketing is allowed, where the health risks are less known,
and where there is no minimum age for buying cigarettes.
A tobacco industry representative said in 1998: “Thinking about Chinese smoking statistics is like trying to think about the limits of space.
” They also said: 'We don’t smoke the ****, we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and the stupid...' ”
GUESS WHAT, YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THE LABELS ASSIGNED BY SOCIETY TO YOU. TAKE YOUR TIME, BUT DON'T TAKE TOO LONG
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