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. Countries have adopted this indicator to report progress also towards the tobacco reduction target under the Global Action Plan …
Smokers will have a tough time in Thailand now. The country has enforced a strict no-smoking law, making it illegal to light a cigarette at virtu-ally any indoor public place in the country. With a few exceptions
just 10 avoidable risk factors, including malnutrition, unsafe sex, smoking and poor sanitation, account for 40 per cent of global deaths each year. This was stated in the latest World Health Report of the World Health Organisation (who). According to the organisation, cheap remedies exist for many ailments and governments …
passive smoking causes decreased lung function in women, especially those suffering from asthma. Surprisingly, men's lung function is not affected due to such exposure. These startling facts were recently revealed during a study conducted by researchers from San Francisco-based University of California. Researchers studied more than 10,000 adults, 440 of …
PACKED off. A stunning US study has clinched the battle of evidence on what tiny particles in the air, mostly emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels do to human health. The industry had refused to admit the mounting scientific evidence that had emerged till now. But this study has …
FINE KILL The health effect of ULTRAFINE particles - smaller than 0.1 micron in diameter - on human health was never properly studied. Epidemiological studies done till now only linked the effects of these particles on respiratory diseases not death. A German study sponsored by the Health Effects Institute has …
A study shows that 7.5-10 per cent of males in Delhi suffer from various respiratory diseases. Another says that 10 per cent suffer from breathlessness and their lung function is way below the expected levels. One study from Bangalore records the shooting up of asthma in tune with vehicular population …
Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been ordered by a jury to pay $150 million in punitive damages in a suit filed by the estate of Michele Schwarz, who succumbed to lung cancer after smoking cigarettes of its Merit brand. In an unprecedented verdict, the company was found to have falsely …
small particles, similar in size to those found in air pollution, can enter the human bloodstream from the lungs, researchers recently discovered. The finding is very significant because, for decades, it was believed that the lung-blood barrier is impermeable for particles and it only allows the passage of gases or …
A simple blood test might be used successfully to predict the chances of a person contracting lung cancer. Researchers at Columbia University, New York, USA, used blood samples that had been collected 13 years ago and found that people whose white blood cells were damaged were at a higher risk …
Smoking has been banned in Seoul's primary and secondary schools. To ensure that the ban is effectively implemented, teachers and students are being imparted more anti-smoking education by the authorities concerned. Says You In-jong, superintendent of the Seoul education board, "We plan to declare war on smoking and wage an …
high levels of air pollution can drastically affect the growth and performance of children's lungs. This was revealed during a study done by researchers at the University of Southern California, usa. According to the researchers, residing in polluted areas is equivalent to smoking ( The American Journal of Respiratory and …
LIKE A FISH out of water, she chokes and gasps. Writhes. She struggles to snatch a lungful of air, while watching television she suddenly hits a vacuum. She is asthmatic. She is just about anybody. One of the 150 million that are reminded the hard way that life in today's …
WITH increasing patients and many of them in industrialised nations the market for asthma drugs is growing rapidly. It is the eighth largest selling drug market and possibly the most profitable venture for pharmaceutical companies, at par with profits made from cancer and heart diseases related drugs. In the absence …
One-third of all young Chinese men would die due to smoking in the next few decades unless they change their lifestyle, states a new study by a team of international researchers. The prediction was made after researchers studied the case histories of Chinese who died in 1998 in Hong Kong. …
A Californian court has reduced the compensation liability of Philip Morris to a Marlboro smoker dying of lung cancer. The court has reduced the compensation from us $3 billion to us $100 million, on condition that Richard Boeken, the petitioner, accepts it. In June 2001, a Los Angeles jury found …
The Supreme Court of India has asked the Union government to provide information about the status of the anti-tobacco bill. These directions were given in response to a petition filed by Women Action Research and Legal Aid for Women, a non-governmental organisation (NGO). The NGO's counsel Rani Jethmalani said that …
the silver lining on the cloud of smoke has proved futile in the us . Only an insignificant amount of the funds from a landmark settlement between the 50 us states and tobacco giants has been utilised for anti-smoking programmes, according to a new report. In 1998, all the us …
It is a hellish accounting subsidising death for profit. Tobacco giant Philips Morris, as a messenger of death, has come out with the most outrageous revelation: deaths from smoking will help governments save healthcare costs by reducing the average life of a person by five years. In a report submitted …
seldom do public office holders write memoirs which are inspiring without lauding their own heroics. In a rare inspiring book, A Question of Intent , David Kessler narrates the story of his seven years with America's largest but toothless watchdog the Food and Drug Administration ( fda ). Kessler, a …
COMPLEMENTING the book (Question of Intent) without being repetitive is the film The Insider which completes behind the scene of the life of an insider and gives a true picture of the mafia-like operations of the tobacco industry. It clearly depicts the fear psychosis that big sharks develop to silence …
