Smoking could be halved in five years, says study    

...or blow out to cause a billion deaths this century, says another 

Two new reports have sharply contrasted the possibility of slashing smoking rates – or facing a disastrous blowout in tobacco deaths.

A report from Pennsylvania University, USA has warned that on present trends, up to one billion people worldwide could die from tobacco smoking this century. It’s estimated that tobacco caused the deaths of 100 million people in the 20^th century.

Science historian Robert Proctor makes the prediction in an article in Nature Cancer Reviews, combining current global smoking trends with an estimate of the average number of cigarettes it normally takes to kill a person.

The report warns that governments need to “take the problem of global tobacco control seriously”; and that “even if everyone on the planet were to quit tomorrow… the death toll from that point on would still be in the tens of millions.”

“The projection is shocking,” says Dr Andrew Penman, CEO of The Cancer Council NSW.  “And it coincides with research also from the US showing that the smoking rate could be cut dramatically if we have the political will.”

He cites new analysis from the University of California in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that smoking rates in the US could, with political will, be slashed from around 25% to just 10% by the end of the decade – saving hundreds of thousands of lives and millions in health costs.

http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/msjama/articles/vol_286/no_21/jms1205012.htm

“Here in Australia”, Says Dr Penman, “we believe that with political commitment, we could cut smoking rates from 20.3% to 10% or less - with massive savings of life, health and public money.”

A coalition of leading health and medical organisations in a major submission to the Treasury is calling on the federal government to save lives and public money by increasing government funding of anti-smoking campaigns from $1 to $10 per capita.

“Tobacco kills more than road accidents, suicide, AIDS, illicit drugs, alcohol and diabetes combined,” says Dr Penman; “but it receives far less government funding than any of them.

“We stand at a major fork on the Tobacco Road. One way lies real improvement in public health; the other leads to a century of devastating death and disease.”

Media info:  Stafford Sanders, ASH Australia    ph. (02) 9334.1823

Page last updated on 6/11/2001