Progress in reducing tobacco use is a key indicator for measuring countries’ efforts to implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – target 3.a under the Sustainable Development Goals agenda.
Aizawl, Sept 7: Mizoram tops the list of tobacco users with about 77 per cent of the population using tobacco in one form or the other. Students in Mizoram are also found to be heavy users of tobacco as about 54 per cent of them have been said to be habitual smokers who publicly smoked cigarettes. This was today stated by Dr Jane R Ralte, an officer-in-charge of the Aizawl Civil Hospital
M Govinda Rao / New Delhi September 02, 2008, 0:09 IST The most important thing is to ban all forms of tobacco consumption in public places. By now, it is well established that tobacco is the single-most important contributor to non-communicable diseases in India. India has the second-largest number of tobacco consumers. Almost 10 per cent of the world
Smokers beware! The government is empowering school principals, postmen, railway station masters, even your boss to book you if you're caught smoking in a public place after October 2 , the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The health ministry has already sent the rule for gazette notification and will make it public in the second week of September.
The explosion of cardiovascular disease in India may not only be bad for the country's health, it could also be bad for its economy. If the surge continues, it could decrease India's productivity and overwhelm its already struggling public-health system, say experts.
Japan Tobacco has already had its fair share of bad news this year. But the world's third-largest cigarette company, with brands such as Camel and Benson and Hedges, is likely to face further turbulence in the months ahead. The beleaguered JT began the year inauspiciously with a tainted food scare, which battered sales in its food division. Then came the launch of "Taspo' last month, an age verification card that aims to crack down on under-age smoking but is also expected to be a significant factor behind a forecast 5 per cent fall in JT's cigarette sales.
When the tobacco industry was feeling the heat from scientists who showed that smoking caused cancer, it took decisive action. It engaged in a decades-long public relations campaign to undermine the medical research and discredit the scientists. The aim was not to prove tobacco harmless but to cast doubt on the science. In May this year, the multibillion-dollar oil giant Exxon-Mobil acknowledged that it had been doing something similar. It announced that it would cease funding nine groups that had fuelled a global campaign to deny climate change.
Two billionaires
Hyderabad July 31: The government as well as health experts are deeply concerned about young people of the country getting addicted to smoking. Recent research says that those who start sm king at a young age find it very difficult to quit the habit at a later stage. Smoking among teens and youth in India is increasing rapidly. It is estimated that the country is losing 90,00,000 jobs in a year because of deaths due to ill-effects of smoking. As per WHO statistics, five million people die each year in the world from diseases related to tobacco use.
Scotland's smoking ban appears to have prevented hundreds of heart attacks in its first year, a study shows. The number of people admitted to the hospital for heart attacks fell by 17% in the year after Scotland's smoking ban took effect in March 2006, according to a study in today's New England Journal of Medicine. The study's author, Jill Pell of the University of Glasgow, says the size of the decline strongly suggests it was the smoke-free law and not some other trend or lifestyle change that prevented the heart attacks.
80% of cancer patients in Sri Lanka have got the diseases from smoking. Hence the challenge before doctors and health administrators is to carry out not only curative medicine but preventive medicine as well, said Healthcare and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva yesterday. Addressing a batch of 200 doctors who had completed their medical internships at the Narahenpita National Blood Transfusion Centre, he said that cancer had become one of the major health problems in the country.
