Phillipines: Health Advocates Renew Call for Graphic Health Warnings on Tobacco Products

Source from:  Business Mirror  01/25/2013

A NEW study which revealed that smoking even just one cigarette a day doubles risk for sudden death in women prompted health advocates to renew their call to implement graphic health warnings on cigarette packs anew.

HealthJustice, a public health nongovernment organization, expressed alarm over the report that even light smokers are at risk of sudden cardiac arrest and wants lawmakers to enact laws that will help prevent such tragedy.
 
Currently, there are graphic health- warning bills filed by Sen. Pia Cayetano and co-sponsored by Sen. Franklin Drilon in the Senate and the counterpart versions filed by Liberal Party Reps. Marcelino Teodoro of Marikina, Niel Tupas of Iloilo and Raul Daza of Northern Samar and Party-list Rep. Teodorico Haresco of Ang Kasangga.
 
Health Justice project manager Evita Ricafort said that aside from effectively showing through pictures the deadly effects of smoking, the bills pending in Congress ban the use of misleading words like "low tar," "light" and "mild" on the cigarette packs.
 
"Other countries have banned such descriptors since they deceive consumers into thinking that so-called light cigarettes are safer than regular ones. A new law requiring picture warnings and banning misleading terms will dispel those lies," Ricafort said.
 
Ricafort said requiring graphic health warnings on cigarette packs is the government's treaty obligation under the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
 
The 30-year study conducted by the Harvard Medical School with the University of Alberta documented the health and lifestyle of 101,018 women.
 
All participants had no known coronary heart disease, stroke or cancer at baseline when the study began.
 
One of the things it observed was whether women's smoking habits affected risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD), where the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating.
 
Over the study period, 351 sudden cardiac deaths occurred, amounting to approximately 0.35 percent of the total number of participants. Even after taking into account other risk factors, researchers discovered that women who considered themselves to be light smokers, consuming one to fourteen cigarettes a day, were two times as likely to die of SCD.
 
That number is alarmingly high considering that SCD is relatively rare.
 
The percentage also translates to thousands of sudden cardiac deaths among the millions of female smokers worldwide, if left unchecked.
 
"Cigarette smoking is a known risk factor for sudden cardiac death, but until now, we didn't know how the quantity and duration of smoking effected the risk among apparently healthy women, nor did we have long-term follow-up," Roopinder K. Sandhu, the study's lead author who is a cardiac electrophysiologist at the University of Alberta's Mazankowski Heart Institute in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, said.
 
HealthJustice said the result of the research is particularly significant for the Philippines, which has 3.84 million female smokers and ranks 16th in world female-smoking prevalence.
 
"This research evidence emphasizes what tobacco companies have long been trying to hide—smoking light or mild cigarettes or even a single cigarette a day can kill you," Ulysses Dorotheo of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance said. Enditem