Smoking is more deadly than thought: study

Smoking is much more deadly than previously thought.
A study of 200,000 Australians shows the habit cuts 10 years off the average smoker's life and is directly linked to two thirds of deaths in current smokers.
This is much higher than previous international estimates of 50 per cent.
The four-year analysis of health records in the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study shows even moderate smoking is a major killer.
"We all know that smoking is bad for your health. But until now we haven't had direct large-scale evidence from Australia about just how bad it is," says study leader Professor Emily Banks, the scientific director of the 45 and Up study.
"We've been relying on evidence from other countries."
The study, supported by the National Heart Foundation in collaboration with Cancer Council NSW, shows risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked a day.
The risk of death is doubled even among those smoking an average of 10 cigarettes a day, says study co-author Associate Professor Freddy Sitas from Cancer Council NSW.
The good news, says Prof Banks, is that stopping smoking at any age reduces the risk.
Smoking is the largest single preventable cause of death in Australia and kills 15,000 people a year, says the Heart Foundation's Dr Rob Grenfell, who worked on the study.
"People need to realise that smoking is a dangerous activity," he said.
"There's no safe level of smoking and there's no such thing as social smoking."

Chief: Smoking or candles started fatal Ohio fire

Smoking cigarettes or burning candles started a mobile home fire that killed five young children and their mother's boyfriend, investigators said Friday.
The cause of the fatal fire was officially listed as undetermined, but evidence found where it started pointed to the source, Tiffin fire Chief William Ennis Jr. said.
"We can't tell you exactly whether it was a candle or a cigarette, but it was one of those two, we're certain," he said.
The investigation also determined there were working smoke detectors inside the mobile home and firefighters could hear the alarms going off when they forced their way into it.
The children, ages 1 to 6, and the man died early Sunday morning in Tiffin, a city in northwestern Ohio. The children's mother, Anna Angel, was working at her fast-food job when the fire broke out.
Angel's four daughters, ages 3, 4, 5 and 6, were laid to rest in a casket following their funeral on Thursday. Her son, 1, was buried with his father, the man who died in the fire.
The fire swept through the mobile home quickly, breaking out windows and peeling some of the home's aluminum siding, while neighbors watched helplessly as firefighters found the bodies of the children.
There was heavy fire in the center of the mobile home and heavy smoke throughout it when firefighters arrived.
The four girls were found in a bedroom and hallway near the back of the trailer while the boy was under a pile of clothes near where his father was discovered, an investigation report released Friday said.
Investigators believe the man, Timothy Fresch, picked up his son and was trying to get out of the mobile home, Ennis said.
"Our feeling was that by the time he got him, the fire grew so fast he had no way to get out," Ennis said. "That was the same with the girls."
There was nothing to indicate that anything criminal took place, the report said.
The deaths of Fresch, 25, and the children, Tiara Angel, 6; Stormie Huey, 5; Trinitie Huey, 4; Sunshine Huey, 3; and Domonic Fresch, 1, shocked the rural community, about 50 miles southeast of Toledo.
Organizers of a fund to help Angel pay for the funerals and other expenses raised about $16,000 within two days of the fire. Rappers The Game and Drake pledged to donate another $22,500 after hearing about what happened.

Smokers encouraged to stub it out in October

England's eight million smokers are being encouraged to quit next month as October gets renamed Stoptober.
The campaign arrived in Sunderland today, September 20, in the form of a giant red wheel. It was being pushed by former 40-a-day smoker, Rory Coleman.
Since quitting 20 years ago, he has run nearly 800 marathons. Now he is running a marathon a day for 28 days to encourage others to give up.

The Czechs resist -Smoking ban

Irish Minister of Health James Reilly has an extraordinarily personal motivation for his mission. First, his father, who went blind after a heart attack, lay bedridden for years before he died. Then, his brother, a doctor who had tried in vain for years to stop smoking, died recently of lung cancer. “This is not a bad habit; it’s an insidious disease, and what is propagating it must be fought,” is what Reilly tells reporters. It’s the same argument he used, last spring, to persuade all of Ireland to introduce plain packaging illustrated with up-close photos of lungs ravaged by smoking for all cigarette “brands” – the second country in the world after Australia to do so.
Reilly and his government colleagues made the fight against tobacco a central theme of their recently-concluded six-month presidency of the EU [which ended June 30]. The result has been extraordinary. European health ministers decided in June that a regulation similar to Ireland’s should be in force across Europe within three years. New legislation must now be ratified by the European Parliament.

National Asthma Council Australia welcomes tobacco tax hike

The National Asthma Council Australia has backed the Pharmacy Guild of Australia in supporting the Federal Government’s proposed increase in tobacco excise. Stephen Hughes, National Asthma Council Australia Director, and a community pharmacist representing the PSA on the Council’s Board, said that raising the tobacco tax was an important initiative not only to give people with asthma a better chance of achieving good asthma control but to improve health outcomes for all Australians. As reported in Pharmacy News, last Thursday, the Government announced that it will introduce a $5.25 tax hike on a 20 pack of cigarettes. Kos Sclavos, Guild national president, welcomed the tobacco tax rise, but called for “a small fraction” of the estimated $5.3 billion the tax will create...