Hindu Editorial in a understandable Way

Licensed to kill

Problem :

• Tobacco products are singularly responsible for a large number of cancer deaths in adults has once again become strikingly clear as published in The Lancet.
• Tobacco-related cancers constitute about 30 per cent of the total mortality (3,95,000) from all cancers in the age group of 30-69.  Oral cancer was found to cause more than twice as many deaths as lung cancers.

Reason:

• majority of rural women chewed tobacco, many men in urban and rural areas chose to chew and smoke.
• remains in close contact with the sensitive mucous membrane of the oral cavity for extended periods is a potent and lethal carcinogen.

How it Affects:

• Besides causing organ-specific cancers, it increases the risk of death from other medical causes.
• In urban areas, smoking-related deaths are more from heart attacks
• While  in rural areas tuberculosis and respiratory diseases are the main causes

Any Initiation from Govt.:

The government showed great eagerness to introduce into the national immunisation programme the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, the most common cancer among women in 2010. Sadly, it seems to lack the gumption to clamp down on killer tobacco products

Solution:

•  Most effective way is to ramp up taxes. France has shown the way by tripling taxes between 1990 and 2005 and halving consumption.
•  Using powerful pictorial warnings, as in many other countries, rather than the currently used ineffectual ones, and rotating them every year instead of once in two years, is yet another means.