'Tobacco still a major killer'

By G. Pramod Kumar

CHENNAI, MAY 30. ``It is the only product when used as directed kills you'' !

If this scary warning against smoking by the former ``Winston'' man, Allan Landers fails to impress one on the World No Tobacco Day today, Chennai's figures should do the talking.

During 1995-97, out of the 48,000 deaths (of people of more than 25 years of age) in Chennai due to medical causes, one third was caused by smoking.

This evidence, that emerged from a study of the Epidemiology Division and Cancer Registry at the Adyar Cancer Institute and the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, University of Oxford, also suggests that the share of deaths due to the entire range of tobacco use is still higher.

Despite the ominous results, the habit has trapped 41 per cent of adults in Chennai. The interim analysis of data collected from 200,000 adults in Chennai (urban) and 70,000 in rural Tamil Nadu as part of another study, shows that 48 per cent of men in the rural areas smoke. About nine per cent of adults in Chennai and 16 per cent in rural Tamil Nadu had the tobacco chewing habit, another dangerous way of using the carcinogenic substance.

According to Dr. C. K. Gajalakshmi, Head of the Epidemiology and Cancer Registry, Cancer Institute, the campaign against tobacco use should be intensified as 50 per cent of all male cancers are caused by tobacco. Besides cancer, smoking increases the risk of respiratory and cardio-vascular diseases.

Jolted by the 11,000 daily deaths caused by tobacco use worldwide, the World Health Organisation has launched a publicity campaign that seeks to dispel the ``glamorous, healthy, sophisticated and wealthy'' image of smokers projected by multi- billion dollar advertising blitzkrieg of the tobacco industry.

In her address for the Day, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Secretary General, WHO, says that the ``No Tobacco Day'' campaign's focus on entertainment, sports and film industry this year is to fight this.

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Section  : Southern States
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