Surgeon-General releases latest smoking report

Press, 28 May 1984, Page 29

Surgeon-General releases latest smoking report

NZPA-AP Washington Cigarette smoking is the primary cause of chronic, obstructive lung disease, including bronchitis and emphysema, said the United States Surgeon-General in his newest report on smoking. In “The Consequences of Smoking: Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease,” Dr Everett Koop blamed cigarette smoking for up to 90 per cent of the 60,000 deaths associated with obstructive lung disease in 1983, in the United States. By comparison, 170,000 heart disease deaths and 130,000 cancer deaths are attributable to smoking. “Thus, while smoking-re-lated chronic obstructive

lung disease mortality is less than estimates for smoking-related deaths due to coronary heart disease and those due to cancer, it nonetheless represents a significant number of excess deaths,” said Dr Edward Brandt, the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr Brandt called these deaths preventable and premature. The report also examined the evidence on tobacco smoke in the environment on non-smokers. It concluded that although clinical studies have suggested a relationship between smoking and the lung diseases, allergies, and asthma, the evidence is not definitive

and more research is needed. The study said that cigarette smoking can contribute significantly to indoor air pollution and increase eye irritation. It cited some evidence that smoke exposure produces small changes in the lung function. But the strongest indictment of environmental smoke was connected with its effect on children. The report said children of smoking parents have a higher prevalence of respiratory symptoms and more frequent bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia early in life. In addition, they have measurable if small differences in lung function when comnared

with children of non-smok-ing parents, although the long-term effects of this are not known. The Tobacco Institute, the trade group representing the United States’s cigarette makers, took issue with the report’s conclusions. "‘The only really significant new information we can find in the report is a chapter on environmental tobacco smoke. Openminded readers will discover that health claims by anti-smokers about environmental tobacco smoke remain unproven,” said William Toohey, a spokesman for the institute. “The Surgeon-General’s opinion regarding chronic obstructive lune disease is

scarcely news. It is the same opinion expressed 20 years ago in the first report We still do not share the Surgeon-General’s opinion on this subject, recognising that it is based on a great deal of conjecture. An opinion should be backed up with facts. In this case, the facts are insufficient. Research has to provide them,” he said. Dr Brandt said that although more research on how cigarettes damage the lung was needed, “the important public health focus must shift to how to prevent children from becoming cigarette smokers and how to help those who now smoke to quit”