Cigarette packs will carry new graphic warnings of smoking risks

Among the other images smokers will see: a corpse in a morgue, rotting lungs and a body cut open during surgery. Graphic pictures of rotting teeth and throat cancer are to appear on cigarette packs to illustrate the health risks of smoking.

The photos will appear on the back of packs with a written health warning.

The images replace the previous warnings introduced in January 2003, although the messages “Smoking seriously harms you and others around you” and “Smoking kills” will continue to appear on the front of packs. The Department of Health said new figures showed written warnings had motivated more than 90,000 smokers to call the NHS Smoking Helpline.

But, smoking is still the biggest killer in England where it is the reason of the premature death of more than 87,000 people each year. The photos are considered to be more effective than text, and research suggested that warnings should be changed from time to time to maintain their effectiveness.

The smokers’ lobby group Forest criticized the new warnings as “gratuitously offensive” and “unnecessarily intrusive”. Forest director Simon Clark said: “We support measures that educate people about the health risks of smoking, but these pictures are designed not just to educate but to shock and coerce people to give up a legal product. They are unnecessarily intrusive, gratuitously offensive, and yet another example of smokers being singled out for special attention.”

Warnings on tobacco products from 30 November

All tobacco products will display approved pictorial warnings from 30 November 2008 issued by the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Awful images of sick lungs will appear on cigarette, bidi and gutkha packets, covering 40 per cent of the surface area of the tobacco packets, with the words: ‘Tobacco kills/Smoking kills’. The warnings were finally approved by a Group of Ministers (GoM). The tobacco industry has three months time to put up the pictorial warnings.

The realization of pictorial warnings on tobacco products in India was planned for February 2007. The GoM formed in 2007 by the Government of India had a task to review the pictorial warnings on tobacco products. This GoM did not accept the pictorial warnings (skull and bones) on these products, rather picked up weaker warnings. The GoM had approved two mild images of a scorpion signal depicting cancer or an x-ray plate of a man suffering from lung cancer.

Several nations have fulfilled strong health warning label requirements. Examples include:

• Canada, whose health minister recently proposed enlarging the labels from 30% of the package face to 60%.


• Singapore, South Africa and Poland also require strong warning labels.


• Thailand, which has added the message “SMOKING CAUSES IMPOTENCE” to its list of required warnings.


• Australia, which was the first nation to require that “how to quit” information be printed on every pack.

These pictorial warnings provide smokers with useful information on the health effects. The tobacco industry is continuing its decades-long strategy of trying to minimize the effectiveness of package warnings. Also package warnings on tobacco products are a good public health strategy because the cost of package warnings is paid for by tobacco companies, not government. These pictorial warnings will get enforced from November 30.

NGO calls for prohibition on tobacco ads

Vision for Alternative Development (VALD), a Non-Governmental Organization which intends enhancing education on tobacco control and health issues has called on the Foods and Drugs Board and the Ministry of Health to institute measures to prohibit tobacco advertisements in the country.
A statement issued in Accra and signed by its Programmes Director, Mr. Labran M. Massawudu said the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which was endorsed by Ghana in June 2004, and deposited at the United Nations Headquarters in November, 2004, became an international legislation on February 2005, was being violated by tobacco industries in the country. It said international tobacco companies, knowing that the international tobacco control treaty was in force continued with tobacco promotion, advertisements and sponsorship targeting the poor and youth communities.
“If you tour most of the streets in town including Nima, Maamobi, Kanda, Ridge and other deprived communities, you will see posters and umbrella of Pall Mall, Gold Seal and Capital Cigarettes pasted on walls, trees, and shops close to school.” He said that, the messages are attractive and directed to children and the youth and that the vehicles of the companies sometimes protect the schools day in and day out which does not augur well for smooth learning. It said last year, during the Eid-il Fitr celebration Gold Seal and Capital Cigarettes collaborated to organize a dance and rap competition for the youth at Maamobi to climax the festival. The statement therefore advised the youth not to entertain such rap and dance, shows this year since the events are a violation of the article 13 of the FCTC Law.
The declaration calls on the government therefore to take the necessary steps in accordance with the constitution of Ghana to ensure that the appropriate policies are developed to implement a comprehensive ban on tobacco sponsorship, advertisement and promotion.

Which is more detrimental Smoking or Obesity?

Researchers reported in a study that heart attacks are hitting the overweight more than a decade sooner than "normal" weight people. "The leading theory in cardiology right now is that the fat tissue is actually producing factors that precipitate heart attacks," said lead author Dr. Peter McCullough, consultant cardiologist and chief of nutrition and prevention medicine at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.

A study of more than 111,000 people showed that obesity is more dangerous to the heart than smoking. Why? Researchers found the answer of this question, they found that cholesterol builds up in the coronary arteries and inflammatory or other chemicals produced by fat cells trigger the plaque to suddenly rupture, causing a blood clot to form and unleashing an acute heart attack.

Until now, researchers didn't have enough studies whether obesity is associated with premature heart attacks, added McCullough. McCullough and his team analyzed data from a nationwide U.S. registry of people hospitalized for heart attack and unstable angina, or chest pain, from 2001 to 2007.

In the final analysis were included a total of 111,847 men and women who had experienced a first heart attack. They were grouped according to their body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat based on height and weight. According to these studies researchers found at least that, the heavier the person, the younger the age of a first heart attack.

The most obese people had their heart attacks on average when they were 59. In a study were compared to about 75 for the leanest group (average body weight 47 kilograms, or about 103 pounds, meaning they were actually considered underweight), and 71 for people of "normal" weight, where the average weight is 65 kilograms, or about 142 pounds. According to this study researchers found that most obese group had a BMI of 40 or more and weighed on average 127 kilograms, or 280 pounds.

The rate of diabetes was 17 percent in the leanest group, and 49 per cent in the most obese. All the patients, regardless of body size, had about the same level of LDL cholesterol, the so-called bad cholesterol thought to be a major risk factor for heart attacks. That means the excess fat is causing heart disease in other ways, McCullough says.

The people at the highest body weight on average lost 12 years of life before their first heart attack, but smokers lost just 10 years of life before a first heart attack. This is really the first study that shows now that some factors are more powerful than smoking in terms of the prematurely of myocardial infarction.