Alphabetical list:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Y Q Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
News: December 9, 2009
Smoking Kills Millions Worldwide Every Year
December 9, 2009Tobacco use kills at least 5 million people every year, a figure that could rise if countries don't take stronger measures to combat smoking, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
In a new report on tobacco use and control, the U.N. agency said nearly 95 percent of the global population is unprotected by laws banning smoking. WHO said secondhand smoking kills about 600,000 people every year.
The report describes countries' various strategies to curb smoking, including protecting people from smoke, enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, and raising taxes on tobacco products. Those were included in a package of six strategies WHO unveiled last year, but less than 10 percent of the world's population is covered by any single measure.
"People need more than to be told that tobacco is bad for human health," said Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO's Tobacco-Free Initiative. "They need their governments to implement the WHO Framework Convention."
Most of WHO's anti-tobacco efforts are centered on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, an international treaty ratified by nearly 170 countries in 2003. The convention theoretically obliges countries to take action to reduce tobacco use, though it is unclear if they can be punished for not taking adequate measures, since they can simply withdraw from the treaty.
Other experts questioned how effective WHO's strategies were.
"It's like the well-intentioned blind leading the blind," said Patrick Basham, director of the Democracy Institute, a London and Washington-based think tank. He said WHO's policies were based more on hope than evidence.
Basham said measures like increasing taxes on tobacco products and banning advertising don't address the root causes of why people smoke. Smoking levels naturally drop off â€" as they have in Western countries â€" when populations become richer and better-educated.
Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death and WHO estimates that, unless countries take drastic action, tobacco could kill about 8 million people every year by 2030, mostly in developing countries.
Basham said officials should focus on anti-poverty measures to stem the smoking problem, though that is beyond WHO's mandate as a health agency.
"The cynical view is that the anti-tobacco lobby has itself now become an industry and we will never be able to do enough to stop smoking," Basham said. "Tobacco use will change, but it has very little to do with the kinds of things WHO is promoting."
Archive issues: (50)
Archive list: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 [16] 17
October 17, 2011 | Sen. Grassley Seeks FDA Scrutiny of Paxil and Suicide RiskWASHINGTON, June 12, 2008 Senator Chuck Grassley has asked the Food and Drug Administration to carefully scrutinize information it received from drug maker ...
September 21, 2009 | Topical cream studied for erectile dysfunctionScientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University are working on a cream to rub on and treat erectile dysfunction (ED). The cream could prove to be safer than oral medications used to deliver nitric oxide to the cells that improves blood flow to treat impotency. Using encapsulated nanoparticles, the ...
May 21, 2012 | Onyx Rises on Analyst View of Blood Cancer DrugNEW YORK -- Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares rose Thursday after a Bernstein Research analyst started covering the stock with an "Outperform" rating, saying he thinks the company’s blood cancer drug candidate will reach $1 billion in annual sales ...
Related articles:
Treatment - diet
The foundation of therapy is a modification of diet to help patients avoid those foods which can further irritate the damaged bladder wall. Common offenders are highly spiced or acidic foods and include alcohol, coffees, teas, herbal teas, green teas, all sodas (particularly diet), concentrated fruit juices, tomatoes, ...Section: Interstitial cystitis
Independence and invulnerability - coping strategies
Standards of masculinity can not only create stress in themselves for some men, they can also limit these men's abilities to relieve stress. Men and women have different ways that they appraise stressful situations and cope with them. Some men appraise situations using the schema of what is an acceptable masculine response rather than what is objectively the best response. Men are limited to a certain range of "approved" responses and coping strategies. Because of this limiting schema, men may ...Section: Mens health risks
Risk-taking
Men, significantly more so than women, tend to drink and drive, not to wear a seat belt, to be aggressive and fight, to drive fast and dangerously. Men are also more likely to be involved in a homicide, to be involved in a motor vehicle accident and other accidents. Men are in fact three times more likely to die of accidents than females. Men make up 93% of ...Section: Mens health risks