Ciggyfree Blog & Gov Alert

TOBACCO companies have covered up for 40 years the fact that cigarette smoke contains a dangerous radioactive substance that exposes heavy smokers to the radiation equivalent of having 300 chest X-rays a year.

Internal company records reveal that cigarette manufacturers knew that tobacco contained polonium-210 but avoided drawing public attention to the fact for fear of “waking a sleeping giant”.

Polonium-210 emits alpha radiation estimated to cause about 11,700 lung cancer deaths each year worldwide. Russian dissident and writer Alexander Litvinenko died after being poisoned with polonium-210 in 2006.

The polonium-210 in tobacco plants comes from high-phosphate fertilisers used on crops. The fertiliser is manufactured from rocks that contain radioisotopes such as polonium-210 (PO-210).
The radioactive substance is absorbed through the plant’s roots and deposited on its leaves.  People who smoke one-and-a-half packets of cigarettes a day are exposed to as much radiation as they would receive from 300 chest X-rays a year, according to research.

New health warning labels such as “Cigarettes are a major source of radiation exposure” have been urged by the authors of a study published in this month’s American Journal of Public Health.  “This wording would capitalise on public concern over radiation exposure and increase the impact of cigarette warning labels,” the Mayo Clinic and Stanford University authors say.

Quit Victoria executive director Fiona Sharkie said Australian tobacco companies were not legally obliged to reveal the levels of chemicals contained in cigarettes.  This made it difficult to know exactly how damaging PO-210 was and meant it was impossible to know what effect it had on other poisons contained in cigarettes.

“It (PO-210) is obviously highly toxic and we applaud any efforts to publicise the dangers,” she said.
“But the industry needs to be better regulated before we can support specific warnings.”  Inhalation tests have shown that PO-210 is a cause of lung cancer in animals.  It has also been estimated to be responsible for 1% of all US lung cancers, or 1600 deaths a year.

The US authors analysed 1500 internal tobacco company documents, finding that tobacco companies conducted scientific studies on removing polonium-210 from cigarettes but were unable to do so.  “Documents show that the major transnational cigarette manufacturers managed the potential public relations problem of PO-210 in cigarettes by avoiding any public attention to the issue.”

Philip Morris even decided not to publish internal research on polonium-210 which was more favourable to the tobacco industry than previous studies for fear of heightening public awareness of PO-210.  Urging his boss not to publish the results, one scientist wrote: “It has the potential of waking a sleeping giant.”  Tobacco company lawyers played a key role in suppressing information about the research to protect the companies from litigation.

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Making small changes could make a big difference in preventing cancer. Avoid preventable risk factors by incorporating these guidelines into of your lifestyle.

Don’t use tobacco

Smoking damages nearly every organ in the human body, is linked to at least 15 different cancers, accounts for about 30 percent of all cancer deaths and costs billions of dollars each year, according to the American Cancer Society. In the United States, cigarette smoking is responsible for about 90 percent of all cases of lung cancer — the leading cause of cancer death. Smoking cigars and pipes or chewing tobacco isn’t safe either.

“The importance of not smoking cannot be over emphasized in the prevention of cancer,” says Dr. Thomas Johnson, oncologist with Sacred Heart Medical Oncology Group. “Quitting is imperative for anyone who uses tobacco. Even people who have used tobacco for many years reduce their risk of cancer by quitting, as compared to people who continue to use tobacco.”

“The predisposition for lung cancer does run in families,” Johnson says. “Smokers with relatives who have contracted lung cancer are at extremely high risk for developing cancer themselves, due to their genetic makeup. You will often see multiple cases of lung cancer in a family that has a history of COPD, emphysema or lung cancer — those family members are predisposed to cancer and should not smoke. Tobacco use alone increases their risk of cancer by 10 to 20 percent.”

Eat healthy foods and get regular exercise

Fully one-third of cancer deaths are linked to poor diet, physical inactivity and carrying excess weight. The American Cancer Society recommends that you limit foods high in fat, eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day and limit alcohol, if you drink it at all. Include moderate physical activity (such as brisk walking) for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week to help achieve or maintain a healthy weight.

“Being overweight increases cancer risk by causing the body to produce and circulate more of the hormones estrogen and insulin, which can stimulate cancer growth,” said Dr. Dee McLeod, oncologist with Sacred Heart Medical Oncology Group. “Studies suggest that people whose diet is high in fat have an increased risk of cancers of the colon, uterus and prostate. Lack of physical activity and being overweight are risk factors for cancers of the breast, colon, esophagus, kidney and uterus.”

Avoid harmful sun exposure

Most skin cancer occurs on exposed parts of your body, including your face, hands, forearms and ears. When going out in the sun keep these tips in mind: Avoid peak hours of the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., stay in the shade, cover exposed skin with clothes and hats and use sunscreen that has a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15.
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Healthnotes Newswire —Smoking generates free radicals in the body, causing cell damage that can sometimes lead to cancer. A study found that smokers might protect themselves from developing lung cancer by eating foods that are rich in antioxidants called flavonoids.

Quit smoking now—the best bet for better health

Smoking increases the risk for several cancers and heart disease, in addition to causing emphysema and other chronic airway diseases. People who quit smoking lower their chances of developing these diseases and can actually repair some of the damage that smoking has caused.

If quitting smoking proves an insurmountable task, though, there are some things that smokers can do that may help protect them from the effects of cigarette smoke.

Flavonoids—nature’s cancer fighters

Flavonoids are plant-derived compounds that are capable of scavenging free radicals in the body. Studies have shown that flavonoids have anticancer properties, but most of these trials have used amounts of flavonoids much higher than those typically found in the diet. The new study, published in the journal Cancer, aimed to determine if flavonoids could protect against lung cancer in smokers and nonsmokers, by comparing the amount and types of flavonoids eaten by 558 people with lung cancer and 837 healthy people.

Smokers who ate more of certain flavonoids called catechin, epicatechin, quercetin, and kaempferol, as well as more vegetables, tea, and wine were less likely to develop lung cancer than smokers who ate less of these flavonoids and foods. Surprisingly, the protective effect of these foods and flavonoids was not seen among nonsmokers. “These results may reflect the finding that these flavonoid compounds are strong antioxidants against free radicals generated by tobacco smoking,” said the authors.

Dr. Lise Alschuler, author of Alternative Medicine Magazine’s Definitive Guide to Cancer, 2nd Edition: An Integrative Approach to Prevention, Treatment, and Healing, commented, “These findings underscore the significant anticancer properties of flavonoids. Even a relatively small amount of dietary flavonoids exerted significant effects. This effect was most obvious in smokers likely due to the fact that smokers are typically severely depleted in antioxidants and have high exposure to cancer-causing chemicals.”
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Both of this year’s presidential candidates say they are ex-smokers, but recent research suggests that they may face increased health risks from cigarettes for years to come.

Some of the damage that cigarettes inflict on the body subsides quickly, halving the risk of heart disease and stroke within five years after a smoker quits. But the effect of smoking on risks of cancer and other diseases can persist for decades, experts say.

Even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), 71, who quit smoking in 1980, still faces some increased risk of cancer from smoking two packs a day for 25 years, studies suggest. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), 46, who says he has struggled to stay off cigarettes since quitting last year, may have less long-term risk because he smoked fewer cigarettes per day.

Better to quit young

A major message of the research is that people who quit at a young age are far better off than those who put it off until later. Obama and McCain, both of whom waited until their mid-40s to quit, would have been measurably better off if they had stopped a decade sooner, experts said.

“If you quit by age 35, by the time you’re 45 you look pretty much like a never-smoker in most of our profiles of risk,” said Terry Pechacek, associate director for science at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s office on smoking and health.

The danger intensifies as smokers approach their 30th year of addiction, Pechacek said. The risk of getting lung cancer for a person who has smoked for 30 years can be six times greater than the risk for someone who has smoked for 20 years.

Some of smoking’s effects may be irreversible. For example, the chronic bronchitis that many smokers develop heals only partially. And quitting cigarettes often has little effect on emphysema, which stems from the damage that cigarette smoke can cause in the lung’s fine structures.

“That stuff doesn’t repair itself,” said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association.

Getting other risks down to normal can take time. A study published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that among women who smoked for 20 years on average, it took 30 years after quitting for their risk of lung cancer to reach normal levels.

Yet heart disease risks declined much more rapidly, the study found. Within five years of quitting, the excess risk from smoking had fallen by 61 percent.

“Clearly there are immediate benefits for some diseases,” said study co-author Stacey Kenfield, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It’s never too late to stop.”

Cancer risks are more difficult to get back to normal because of how that disease progresses in the body, experts said.

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The federal government regulates everything from breakfast cereal and hair dye to horse feed and breast implants. The list of items regulated by our government includes just about every consumable product in America from prescription drugs to vegetables.

But there’s one item strangely absent from the list, the one that causes more preventable deaths than any other product. A powerful and well-funded lobby has managed to keep tobacco off the list of federally regulated products for more than 40 years after the first surgeon general’s report linked smoking to cancer. Even today, a simple list of ingredients is not required for tobacco products.

Tobacco companies have taken advantage of this lack of oversight and have shamelessly marketed to underaged recruits through cartoon advertising, nicotine and ingredient manipulation, fruity flavors, free giveaways at rock concerts, and ads in publications with high teen readership.

In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration assumed the authority to regulate tobacco as a consumable product and published rules regarding this regulation. Some basic common-sense approaches were proposed in those rules, including ways to prohibit the sale and marketing of tobacco to children. However, the Supreme Court ruled that only Congress could give the FDA authority to regulate tobacco.

Twelve years later, we continue to wait for Congress to take action regarding this lone unregulated product. We submit to you that this is 12 years too long.

Currently being considered by Congress, the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act, S. 625 and H.R. 1108, would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products the way drugs, devices, and foods are currently regulated.
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How did Marlboro cigarettes, the best-selling brand in the world, ever get so popular in the first place? Was it really the Marlboro Man? Did people just like the taste? What? According to a new study in this month’s American Journal of Public Health the secret may well have been “freebase nicotine.” Really.

For a long time, many cigarette companies used ammonia during the manufacturing process to inflate the volume of tobacco, accentuate certain flavors, or even get rid of a few carcinogens. But in the early 1960s, according to Terrell Stevenson and Robert Proctor, Philip Morris started using ammonia to freebase the nicotine in cigarette smoke, creating a form of “crack nicotine” that delivered a speedier, sharper kick, and essentially allowed Philip Morris to keep rolling out addictive cigarettes while lowering tar and nicotine levels to allay public fears.

As it happens, Philip Morris first perfected its ammonia trick with Marlboros, which quickly rose from being a bit player to becoming the most dominant cigarette brand on the market, which forced all the other manufacturers to scramble to figure out Philip Morris’s secret. (They did, eventually.) Over the last decade, as the industry has come under fire for manipulating nicotine levels to keep customers hooked, Philip Morris has managed to defend itself by noting that ammonia has all sorts of more innocuous uses and couldn’t possibly be playing a role here. I guess we’ll see if this new paper kicks the last legs out from under that defense.

Source: Bradford Plumer, The New Republic

Your toes tell it all, ladies.

Toenail clippings can provide evidence of tobacco exposure and help explain the risk of heart disease, at least in women, according to a unique study from the University of California-San Diego and Harvard University.

The medical researchers examined levels of nicotine in toenails of 905 women who were diagnosed with coronary heart disease from 1984 through 1998.

The women were among the 62,641 participants in the Nurse’s Health Study. Those with heart disease were randomly matched to two other participants by age and by the date that their toenails were collected.

The 20 percent of women who had the highest nicotine levels in their toenails turned out to have more than triple the risk of being diagnosed with heart disease as those whose levels put them in the lowest 20 percent. The risk remained significantly higher after the researchers took smoking into account, adjusting for the number of cigarettes smoked as well as exposure to second hand smoke.

“Using toenail nicotine is a novel way to objectively measure exposure to tobacco smoke, and ultimately, to increase our understanding of tobacco-related illness, said Wael Al-Delaimy, of UC-San Diego’s department of family and preventive medicine, lead author of the study published this month in the American Journal of Epidemiology. “This would be especially helpful in situations where smoking history is not available or is biased.”

Source: Josh Goldstein, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Slave to the New World Order? Read spp.gov

A new study indicates that smoking is linked to anxiety with depression, as well as to anxiety alone. However, people who are depressed but not anxious smoke the same as any other smokers. These findings come from a joint study from Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), University of Bergen and King’s College in London.

The link between smoking and anxiety/depression was most apparent among women and young people. Data were collected from 60 000 participants in “Health Studies in North-Troendelag” (HUNT), a study based in a county in northern Norway.

Figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show that 30 percent of inhabitants in the western world smoke daily. Earlier studies have found that people with mental health problems are twice as likely to smoke as the rest of the population. Injuries to physical health after smoking are well documented. It is also known that smoking is linked to other psychological problems. Anxiety and depression are the most common complaints and are often both present in people who smoke.
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Washington, DC, February 22, 2008 - In 2008, the truth® youth smoking prevention campaign unleashes music, dancing and cartoons to reveal the “sunny side” of tobacco use and the tobacco industry. The American Legacy Foundation®’s edgy truth® campaign is designed to educate teens about tobacco by exposing Big Tobacco’s marketing practices, as well as highlighting the toll of tobacco use in relevant and innovative ways.

Consider the following facts about the tobacco industry:
- The industry has been found by a Federal judge to have manipulated the amount of nicotine delivered by its cigarettes to create and sustain addiction.1 At the same time, research indicates that nicotine is highly addictive.
- Research has shown that the tobacco industry “youth prevention” ads aimed at parents actually increased the likelihood that teens will smoke in the future
- Finally, according to the Federal Trade Commission, in 2005 the industry spent nearly 36 million dollars each day marketing its products in the U.S. alone.

The latest truth® campaign aims to shine a light on some of these activities and satirically point out some of the “hidden positives” associated with tobacco.

The “Sunny Side of truth®” television ads unfold in a way reminiscent of previous truth® ads – with young people on the streets doing real truth® stunts like gathering in front of tobacco industry headquarters buildings. But then the spots continue in a saccharin sweet, yet super-sarcastic fashion. When the young people consider a tobacco fact and the “sunny side” of Big Tobacco, a live singin’-and-dancin’ musical number breaks out. Despite the musical diversion, the ads remain gritty, real, and true to the campaign, delivering a strong anti-tobacco message or illuminating facts about tobacco.
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We don’t see much of the Marlboro Man anymore, but what about the “Virginia Slims” woman? Everybody knows what happened to him – or them, two of whom died from lung cancer.

She, however, was never quite as iconic. But that doesn’t mean the tobacco companies don’t have a soft spot for women, especially the young ones, according to a new report released Wednesday.

Issued by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the report alleges tobacco companies are trying to cultivate a generation of new users with fruity flavored cigarettes and marketing campaigns that target young people, including young women and girls.

In particular, the report takes issue with a recent R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company campaign that it says is clearly designed to attract girls with hot pink product packaging, ladies-only nights at clubs and cutesy party giveaway bags containing cigarettes, berry-flavored lip gloss and cell phone “bling.”

David Howard, spokesman for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, said the Camel No. 9 marketing campaign is not about reaching young people. There are 20 million adult women smokers, Howard said, and 19 million of them smoke some brand other than Camel.
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Smoking plays a role in lung cancer development, and now scientists have shown that smoking also affects the way genes are expressed, leading to alterations in cell division and regulation of immune response. Notably, some of the changes in gene expression persisted in people who had quit smoking many years earlier. These findings by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, appeared in the Feb. 20, 2008, issue of PLoS ONE.

“Smoking, we are well aware, is the leading cause of lung cancer worldwide,” said NCI Director John E. Niederhuber, M.D. “Yet, a mechanistic understanding of the effects of smoking on the cells of the lung remains incomplete. This study demonstrates an important piece of this complicated puzzle. Greater understanding of the genetic alterations that occur with smoking should provide greater insight into the development of cellular targets for treating, and possibly preventing, lung cancer.”

“We were able to look at actual lung tissue, tumor and non-tumor, taking into account the differences by gender, verifying the smoking status by measuring levels of cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, in participants’ plasma, and confirming results in independent samples,” said Maria Teresa Landi, M.D., Ph.D., in NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, the first author of the study report.
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The mentally ill consume 45% of the cigarettes smoked in America these days, the WSJ reports. A striking figure in its own right, the number takes on new significance amid reports of psychological troubles associated with Pfizer’s anti-smoking drug Chantix.

Nicotine increases the level of dopamine in the brain’s reward center — a powerfully addictive effect. And as reports have emerged of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in patients taking Chantix, Pfizer has pointed out that, even in the absence of drug treatment, quitting smoking can have a powerful effect on the mind.

But, the FDA suggested, taking Chantix — which binds to the same neural receptors as nicotine — may add to the psychological tumult, at least for some patients. And because the mentally ill were excluded from the drug’s pre-approval clinical trials, it’s hard to know where mental illness fits into the picture.

Still, the benefits of quitting smoking are so great that some degree of risk should be tolerable in a drug that helps people quit. “If you have a history of depression, you need to be careful when you stop smoking that it doesn’t come back,” John Hughes, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont and a Pfizer adviser, told the WSJ. But for people who’ve failed to quit with a nicotine patch and are thinking about using Chantix, he wouldn’t avoid the drug over fears of mental problems: “The risk is so small under a physician’s care, and the benefit is so huge.”
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Parents now have another reason to worry about their children smoking.

Nicotine might cause the teenage brain to develop abnormally, resulting in changes to the structure of white matter — the neural tissue through which signals are relayed. Teenagers who smoke, or whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, are also more likely to suffer from auditory attention deficits, meaning they find it harder to concentrate on what is being said when other things are happening at the same time.

Leslie Jacobsen of Yale University School of Medicine and colleagues used diffusion tensor imaging, which measures how water diffuses through brain tissue, to study the brains of 33 teenagers whose mothers had smoked during pregnancy. Twenty-five of the teens were daily smokers. The team also studied 34 teens whose mothers had not smoked, of whom 14 were daily smokers.

Both prenatal and adolescent exposure to tobacco smoke were associated with changes in white matter in brain pathways that relay signals to the ear.

The changes were greatest in teenagers who smoked, suggesting the brain is particularly vulnerable to the effects of nicotine during adolescence, when many neural pathways are maturing (Journal of Neuroscience).
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Trying to quit smoking for good but finding it too hard to do? Well, here’s a simple solution: Drink lots of milk

Milk not only does the body good, it may also help you quit smoking. Consuming milk makes the taste of cigarette bad and by making a few modifications to the diet one can make quitting bit easier. And this is not just an assumption, but truth found by medical researchers.

The research, conducted by a team from the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, is the first to explore the taste-altering effects of food and beverages on cigarette palatability.

The study examined 209 smokers and asked them to name items that worsen or enhance the taste of cigarettes.

Nineteen percent of them reported that dairy products, such as milk or cheese, worsen the taste of cigarettes; 14 percent reported non-caffeinated beverages, such as water or juice; and 16 percent reported fruits and vegetables.

Forty-four percent of them reported that alcoholic beverages enhance the taste of cigarettes; 45 percent reported caffeinated beverages, such as tea, cola and coffee; and 11 percent reported meat.

Identifying which components of foods and beverages ruin the taste of cigarettes could lead to new treatments to deter smoking, said co-investigator Jed E. Rose of the Duke University Medical Center study.

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“Just because it’s green, we don’t have to take it,” said Paula Murray, associate dean at the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business, to The New York Times.

Murray was referring to her school’s recent decision to cut off all funding from Philip Morris, a cigarette manufacturer that has donated over $308,500 to business schools like McCombs since 1989.

The University of Texas (UT) is just one of the many universities across the United States that have recently deemed contributions from tobacco companies “tainted.” On ethical grounds, these schools have decided to ban tobacco companies from funding university development and research.

Philip Morris, which has partnered with UT for many years, had been pressing for a more active role in the McCombs community. Although they already had a program set up to recruit business students as employees, they had asked for more interaction with the students.
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Tobacco use will kill 1 billion people in this century, a 10-fold increase over the past 100 years, unless governments in poor nations raise taxes on consumption and mandate health warnings, the World Health Organization said.

No country fully implements these most important tobacco- control measures, according to a 330-page report released today by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Geneva-based UN agency. Bloomberg, who helped fund the study, joined WHO Director-General Margaret Chan at a news conference in New York to discuss the findings.
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BEN AFFLECK is helping TV titan OPRAH WINFREY prompt Americans to stop smoking by talking about the reasons behind his decision to quit after 20 years.

The movie star/director appeared on Winfrey’s show on Tuesday (22Jan08), which was aimed at those struggling to give up nicotine. He revealed he once smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and that became “part of who I was”.

ffleck said, “I finally decided to quit smoking when I was gonna have a child. That was the thing that sort of put it over the top for me.” The Pearl Harbor star used hypnosis to kick his habit after best pal Matt Damon urged him to try the method that helped him quit.

ffleck recalls, “You sit in, like, a Barker lounger (chair) and he (hypnotist) sips water and just talks to you for an hour, and explains how nicotine is poison.
“All of a sudden, you thought’ ‘This is asinine that I’ve been doing this to myself for all these years.’ “My last cigarette was on November 10th, 2005… I feel a huge difference in my health now that I don’t smoke. I feel like I’m in better shape than I was five years ago.”
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You’ve heard all the warnings and scientific data, even seen disclaimers on the side of the box.

Prevention, however, is hard to accomplish.  According to a new study from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Alabama ranks 49th when it comes to funding tobacco prevention programs, spending only 2.9% CDC’s minimum recommendations.
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Joggers–put down the hog head cheese. A new study of half a million people from the National Cancer Institute finds that red and processed meat not only promotes colon cancer–which everyone knew–but esophagus, liver, lung and pancreas cancer!

Grilled meat, the study found, is especially bad because it produces *heterocyclic amines –linked to breast, colon, stomach and prostate cancers–and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, another class of carcinogens formed from dripping fat.

Much to the chagrin of cattlemen, in the last two decades red meat has gone from good-for-you to do-it-if-you-feel lucky. Not as kamikaze as smoking or eating a Lake Michigan fish but getting there.

In fact the all American meal of roast beef swimming in a moat of gravy and mashed potatoes, rolls, butter and pie for dessert is now regarded as a coronary waiting to happen.

And that’s before we get to the all American breakfast of sausage and bacon.

No, for anyone who wants to live past 40 today the four food groups are no longer cholesterol, salt, calories and fat. There’s a new sheriff in town and he’s called fiber.

It’s got to be rough on the Department of Agriculture these days–promoting beef and the beef industry while safeguarding the population whose health it destroys.
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You are thinking that maybe it is time to stop?  You go girl!!!

London: Singing can cure various ailments ranging from breathing problems and depression to memory disorders and nicotine addiction, suggest several researches done across the world.

According to a study by scientists at the Western Ontario University in Canada, singing tones muscles at the back of the throat and this helps long-suffering partners of snorers get a silent night.

“Surgical interventions to treat snoring include removing tissue from the upper throat or toughening it by creating scar tissue. Singing offers a harmless, healthy, non-invasive, inexpensive and enjoyable way to restore the throat’s tone,” study author Alise Ojay said.
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RICHMOND, Va. - A national study by an anti-smoking group says Virginia continues to lag behind in the amount of money spent on anti-smoking campaigns for minors.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reports that in the last fiscal year, Virginia spent $14.5 million on anti-smoking campaigns for youths. That’s less than half of what it should be spending based on recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The group said Wednesday that Virginia’s spending puts it at 32nd in the nation, down from a ranking of 24th last year.

The report said 19 percent of Virginia adults smoke, while 21 percent of the state’s teenagers smoke.

Source: AP

In a new report outlining the use of tobacco state by state New Hampshire has received a failing grade.

It was released jointly by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and American Lung Association.

The report, entitled “A Broken Promise to Our Children,” ranked states on their cost associated with programs aimed at protecting kids from the dangers of tobacco, and ranked the state of New Hampshire a disappointing 41st.

The state spends 1.3 million dollars per year on anti-tobacco programs for kids, which is only 12% of the recommended spending amount.

Other states did not fair much better on the national ranking report.

North Carolina came in a disappointing 28th in anti-tobacco spending, offering a yearly allotment of just over 17 million dollars.

Massachusetts came in at number 33, only spending 12.8 million dollars per year on anti-tobacco campaigns aimed at kids.

“Massachusetts has made a modest improvement in protecting kids from tobacco, but budget cuts have reduced the effectiveness of what was once one of the nation’s best tobacco prevention programs,” said William V. Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, in a statement.
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Once among the nation’s leaders for anti-smoking campaigns for youth, Mississippi now ranks 27th among states that spend money on tobacco prevention, a new report says.

The report _ released Wednesday _ also found that tobacco companies spend $183 million a year on marketing in Mississippi, almost 23 times the state funding for tobacco prevention.

State Health Officer Dr. Ed Thompson said there’s been some decline in youth tobacco use rates in the state, but there’s a “great deal of competition from the tobacco industry so that’s an uphill battle.”

Overall, states this year have increased total funding for tobacco prevention programs by 20 percent to $717 million, the report said. Maine, Delaware and Colorado were the only three states that funded tobacco prevention programs at minimum levels recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the report said.

Issued by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society, the report called for the implementation of tobacco control measures. Those included prevention programs, higher tobacco taxes and smoke-free workplace laws.
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Sounding a warning over the dangers of passive smoking, a large-scale government study has found that women whose husbands smoke at home have twice the risk of developing a specific type of lung cancer compared with those married to nonsmokers.

The research team of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry that carried out the study, whose results were announced Wednesday, also said that about 40 percent of nonsmoking female cancer patients might not have contracted the disease if they had not been exposed to cigarette smoke at home.

The lung cancer in question, adenocarcinoma, is one type of non-small cell lung cancer that often develops along the outer edges of the lung and under the membranes lining the bronchi. It is the most frequently found type of lung cancer, cases of which have been increasing in the country. Those who have developed the cancer account for 70 percent of female lung cancer patients and 40 percent of male lung cancer patients.

The study was conducted on about 28,000 nonsmoking women who were aged between 40 and 69 over about 13 years from the early 1990s.
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More salads, exercise, can keep lung tumors at bay, one study found

While genes and environment can affect your risk for cancer, so can everyday lifestyle choices on things such as diet, exercise and smoking, new research shows.

The findings were to be presented Friday in Philadelphia at an American Association for Cancer Research conference on cancer prevention.

One study found that people who quit smoking can further reduce their risk of lung cancer by eating plenty of vegetables (four or more servings of salad a week or equivalent). The researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center also found that former smokers who get exercise through gardening are 45 percent less likely to get lung cancer than former smokers who don’t garden.

Current smokers who ate three servings or less of salad a week were two times more likely to develop lung cancer than current smokers who ate four or more salads a week. Current smokers who gardened were 33 percent less likely to get lung cancer than current smokers who didn’t garden, the Texas team found.
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Study will focus on connection between smoking and anxiety disorders

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida State University professor will share a $3.3 million federal grant with a colleague from the University of Vermont to develop an innovative method that will help smokers with anxiety disorders extinguish the habit.

FSU psychology Professor Brad Schmidt and UVM psychology Professor Michael Zvolensky are recruiting about 600 people — 300 at each campus — to participate in the study over the next five years. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the $3.3 million grant is one of the largest the scientific organization has ever awarded for this kind of study, Schmidt said.

Cigarette smoking, the leading cause of preventable death and disability in North America, is particularly common among those with, or at risk for developing, panic disorder, according to Schmidt. About 40 percent of individuals with panic disorder are regular smokers and more than 60 percent have a lifetime history of smoking.

These rates are higher than in the general population where about 25 percent are smokers. Yet no specialized approach currently exists to help smokers with anxiety problems quit, Schmidt said.

The thing that makes this smoking cessation program unique is the focus on reducing anxiety sensitivity, which is a risk factor for developing anxiety problems,  he said. Nicotine withdrawal produces all kinds of unpleasant feelings, and if you’re extremely sensitive to these kinds of bodily sensations, it could provoke anxiety and panic responses.
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With all the news about government spending on unnecessary items comes news that spending on a program that helps may not be used effectively.

America’s Medicaid system could spend $10 billion less in costs for its patients’ care over the next five years if they were to stop smoking, according to a new study by the American Legacy Foundation. It also found that effective smoking prevention and cessation programs could cut the cost of funding Medicaid by 5.6 percent. This is according to a recent press release issued by the American Legacy Foundation.

According to the report, the costs vary from state to state. In a state such as Wyoming the current Medicaid spending on smoking is $15 million. Meanwhile, in a much more populated state such as New York, that total is much higher, in the amount of $1.5 billion. Overall as a country, if all the smokers on Medicaid quit at the same time it would save the country $9.7 billion according to the press release.

“This report is a wake up call to the nation’s health policy makers,” said Janet Napolitano, who is the Governor of Arizona and also a board member for the American Legacy Foundation. “All of us who are struggling with the ever-rising costs of Medicaid should take these dramatic findings to heart. With more than 8.6 million Americans suffering from tobacco-related disease, and tobacco remaining the number one preventable cause of death in our nation, we must help smokers quit. These data make clear that investing in proven tobacco cessation programs is sound fiscal and public health policy. We can - and must - take the necessary steps to save both lives and taxpayer dollars.”, concluded Napolitano.
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PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 30 — Smoking cessation rates doubled when quit-line callers were given free nicotine patches in addition to counseling, researchers found.

Calls to a smoking cessation hotline increased 112% when, in addition to a 30-minute telephone counseling session, callers were given a two-week supply of transdermal nicotine patches, said Jeffrey Fellows, Ph.D., of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research here, and colleagues.

Quit rates also improved from 8.2% with counseling alone to 15.7% with the patches plus counseling, they reported in a December supplement to the journal Tobacco Control.

In a separate randomized trial, more than 21% of smokers quit when they received intensive counseling plus nicotine patches, versus 11.7% among smokers who received a single brief counseling session and no patches.

Dr. Fellows noted that offering free nicotine replacement ultimately reduces the “average cost per quit.” In the first program, he said, the total one-year cost for counseling alone was $1.97 million versus $2.25 million when the patch giveaway was added. However, the addition of patches quadrupled the number of smokers who quit, so the cost per quit was $1,050 with the patch giveaway compared with $3,778 without it.
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The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has launched a new anti-Camel No. 9  web site:

Features:
-A petition asking editors of women’s magazines to stop running ALL cigarette ads
-Fact sheets about women, smoking and health
-Media coverage of Camel No. 9
-Image gallery of Camel No. 9 magazine ads, postcard promotions and novelty items
-Message board to share ideas
-Resources page

Visit them on the web at CancerNo9.com