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.

Mobile phones are more harmful than smoking

Brain experts warn of huge rise in tumours and call on manufacturers to take immediate steps to reduce radiation. Mobile phones could kill more people than smoking. They say people should avoid using them wherever possible. The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the devastating indictment published of the health risks.

Using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer.

Earlier this year, the French authority warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children. Germany and the European Environment Agency also advise its people to minimize handset use.

Professor Khurana, a top neurosurgeon who has received 14 awards over the past 16 years, reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones. He admits that mobiles can save lives in emergencies, but is sure that “there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours”. He thinks this will be “definitively proven” in the next decade. He adds: “We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation.”

He fears that “unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps”, the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death level will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, Professor Khurana, who told that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke, says: “It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking.” Tobacco products kill some five million worldwide each year, and exposure to asbestos is responsible for as many deaths in Britain as road accidents.

The Mobile Operators Association dismissed Khurana’s study as “a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual”. He “does not present a balanced analysis” of the published science, and “reaches opposite conclusions to the WHO and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews”.

Information Provided by: US Cigarettes