Environmental tobacco smoke and risk of respiratory cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in former smokers and never smokers in the EPIC prospective study
The photograph on the BMJ issue showing the innocent child closing
his eyes and mouth as a response to the smoke reflects the natural dislike
of human body towards smoke.
This natural dislike reflected on the child`s face is added on by an
extensive evidence on the health hazards of passive smoking.Sufficient
data to implicate passive smoking as a cause of lung cancer and coronary
heart disease exists and a growing data implicating passive smoking as a
cause of stroke is accumulating. Hence the need is for global urgent
preventive and palliative measures. Various communities working on these
issues may very well consider on those lines. I strongly feel on the
following points:
1) Educating children in schools on health hazards of tobacco smoke.
2) Developing an antidote or a detoxifying substance to tobacco smoke or a
vaccine against ill-effects of tobacco smoke.
3) More aggressive and a regular publicity blitz on ill effects of
passive/active smoking.
4) More aggressive research to make smoke once exhaled to detoxify
immediately in air.
5) Ready availability of smoking cessation clinics to those who want to
stop smoking.
6) Also modifying National guidelines in terms of using nicotine patches
or inhalers who were unsuccessful in the past to stop smoking.
Lot of time and energies are being spent on doing various studies on
looking at ill effects of tobacco smoke on which a lot of convincing data
already exists.But if the same energies could also address some of the
above stated issues,it may be worth an energy spent.
Medical community should encourage every smoker to quit smoking and
it would be worth saying "NO success is final,no failure is fatal" for a
smoker in his efforts to stop smoking.
Rapid Response:
Let us redirect our efforts
The photograph on the BMJ issue showing the innocent child closing
his eyes and mouth as a response to the smoke reflects the natural dislike
of human body towards smoke.
This natural dislike reflected on the child`s face is added on by an
extensive evidence on the health hazards of passive smoking.Sufficient
data to implicate passive smoking as a cause of lung cancer and coronary
heart disease exists and a growing data implicating passive smoking as a
cause of stroke is accumulating. Hence the need is for global urgent
preventive and palliative measures. Various communities working on these
issues may very well consider on those lines. I strongly feel on the
following points:
1) Educating children in schools on health hazards of tobacco smoke.
2) Developing an antidote or a detoxifying substance to tobacco smoke or a
vaccine against ill-effects of tobacco smoke.
3) More aggressive and a regular publicity blitz on ill effects of
passive/active smoking.
4) More aggressive research to make smoke once exhaled to detoxify
immediately in air.
5) Ready availability of smoking cessation clinics to those who want to
stop smoking.
6) Also modifying National guidelines in terms of using nicotine patches
or inhalers who were unsuccessful in the past to stop smoking.
Lot of time and energies are being spent on doing various studies on
looking at ill effects of tobacco smoke on which a lot of convincing data
already exists.But if the same energies could also address some of the
above stated issues,it may be worth an energy spent.
Medical community should encourage every smoker to quit smoking and
it would be worth saying "NO success is final,no failure is fatal" for a
smoker in his efforts to stop smoking.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests