E-Cigarettes Don’t Help Reduce Cancer, Says WHO

By OB Bureau On Jul 27, 2019

World No Tobacco Day: Let’s Know What Experts, Teenagers Says Bhubaneswar: Today the world celebrates ‘World No Tobacco Day’ (WNTD). The annual campaign is an opportunity to raise awareness on the harmful and deadly effects of tobacco use and second-hand smoke exposure, and to discourage the use of tobacco in any form. The report also revealed that tobacco killed 10 crores of people in the 20th century. Annually 80 lakh people die of tobacco related illnesses and of these; 10 lakh deaths occur due to second hand smoke. “Tobacco kills one person every 4 seconds. In India 42 % of men, 14 % of women and 28 % (27 crores) of all adults currently use tobacco (smoked and/or smokeless tobacco), report says. The campaign also serves as a call to action, advocating for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption and engaging stakeholders across multiple sectors in the fight for tobacco control. Odisha Bytes spoke to some teenagers and doctor to know the ill effect of consuming tobacco: Dr. Kunal Jha, Associate Professor of Department of Public and Dentistry of Kalinga Institute Of Medical Science said, “We are trying to create a tobacco free society on this World No Tobacco Day.” We always prefer the educational approach through which we are able to educate the people to create awareness. As we are dentist so, not only lungs cancer, but we focused on oral cancer also, Odisha state is leading among all the states in India and here smokeless forms of Tobacco are mainly used here.” We have also conducted webinar on “Tobacco counseling in Covid times” today.” Dr Sourav Kumar Mishra, DM (Cancer Institute, Chennai), ECMO and Associate Professor of Department of Medical Oncology, IMS & SUM Hospital, Bhubaneswar said, “Globally 18 lakh deaths are caused by lung cancer annually. Smoking is the most common preventable cause of lung cancer. Smokers are 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer in their lifetime, compared with non-smokers. Annually 68,000 new cases of lung cancers are diagnosed in India.” Ayushman Misra, a software engineer in TCS said, “I've generally had smokers around me. Indeed, even my father was one and he utilized work, stress and even obstruction as a reason for it. I got smoking when I was 21, mature enough to realize what hurt it does. I frequently wound up utilizing similar reasons that my father did. I quit a few times in the middle of - particularly at whatever point I got respiratory contaminations - however my inclination to clear consistently won out. That is until I got determined to have three unique maladies that are misrepresented by smoking. Over the most recent eight months, I've burned through five not smoking by any stretch of the imagination.”3

Geneva: Electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products are not helping fight cancer, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, urging smokers and governments not to trust claims from cigarette firms about their latest products.

The seventh “WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic” released on Friday said blocking the industry’s interference was critical to cutting the harm from tobacco use, news agency Reuters reported.

“The tobacco industry has a long history of systemic, aggressive, sustained and well-resourced opposition to tobacco control measures,” the report said. “While some strategies are public and others more covert… all have the goal of weakening tobacco control.”

The WHO report said the industry hoped to win respectability through manipulative messages such as claiming their products were part of a “harm reduction” strategy, even though cigarettes still account for 97% of the global tobacco market.

It said tobacco giant Philip Morris International was trying to position itself as a responsible public health partner via its “Unsmoke” campaign, which encourages people to “change to a better alternative”.

The WHO said the campaign aimed to ensure tobacco remained socially acceptable, while confusing consumers with terms such as “smoke-free products”, which may refer to products with toxic emissions and unknown short-term and long-term health effects.

Philip Morris spokesman Ryan Sparrow said the WHO’s message made it harder to provide safer options for people who cannot quit smoking. “There is no question that the best choice for smokers is to quit cigarettes and nicotine altogether. The reality is many people do not. We cannot turn our backs on them,” he said.