Smoking by girls ‘trendy’

Press, 30 May 1987, Page 9

Smoking by girls ‘trendy’

By

JANE ENGLAND

The blood of cancer victims was on the hands of tobacco manufacturers who use advertising to encourage teen-age girls to smoke, said Professor John McCaffrey, the founder of Australia’s first breast-screening clinic, in Christchurch yesterday. Some controversy had recently been caused by medical research done by Harvard University in the United States which revealed a link between alcohol and cancer in women.

But Professor McCaffrey said smoking still remained the biggest cause, and increased cigarette advertising was now contributing to cancer in younger women. He had observed advertisers’ swing away from young men as target consumers because the “macho image” had become equated with a fitter, healthier image. Cigarette advertisements were now aimed at young girls and smoking was portrayed as the trendy thing to do, he said. The result of such advertising led to death, he said.

The Cancer Society and women’s health clinics would have to face the huge hurdle of combating

the advertisements with education.

“But how can you hope to compete with so much money and power stacked against you?”

A study by scientists of the Christchurch School of Medicine and the University of Canterbury had proved that cigarette advertising “significantly” increased smoking. Tobacco companies had repeatedly tried to prove that there was no conclusive cancer-smoking link.

“But all the studies show there is no doubt about it.”

Professor McCaffrey said young women were more likely to be swayed into giving up the habit because it caused premature wrinkling than out of a fear of cancer.

It was important that girls and women should be encouraged to see cancer as something they could detect and prevent rather than as a threat, he said.

Seventy per cent of women in Australia and New Zealand were still failing to regularly examine their breasts for abnormal lumps. The 30 per cent who did were sometimes discouraged by the disconcerting attitudes of some doctors.

“Nothing puts a women off faster than a doctor telling her he thinks there

is nothing wrong when her body is telling her there is.” Health education which promoted self-examina-tion and chemotherapy have failed to reduce the death rate caused by cancer, he said. “The only . thing which has made an impact is mammography screening.”

Professor McCaffrey criticised an article in yesterday’s "Dominion” newspaper which cast doubts on the effectiveness of breast screening as “thoroughly destructive and harmful.” It was, he said, an example of archaic attitudes which pervaded the medical profession and the news media 10 years ago. The article quoted specialists who said there was no proof that the mammography X-ray reduced cancer, and criticised the procedure for its high costs and element of risk.

Professor McCaffrey said an effective mammograpy programme X-ray-ing women between 50 and 70 years of age, those who had received a previous biopsy, or whose family showed a history of cancer, would reduce the death rate 30 per cent.

While the procedure could be uncomfortable it was certainly not painful

or dangerous, he said. “It is the only effective way of reducing mortality and the reasons why anyone would argue with that escape me. It is very depressing when we finally have something which is making such a big impact.” Professor McCaffrey first became convinced of the success of mammography screening programmes after visiting clinics in Sweden, Britain, Canada and the United States, but it took 10 years of campaigning before he was able to set up a clinic in Brisbane. The clinic is run from a regional base at the Brisbane Royal Hospital and other mobile units. It has now been working for 15 months, screening between 20 and 40 women a day and detecting 19 cases of early cancer. The treatment involved removal of lumps and radiation treatment, he said. “It appears to have been successful although it takes more time to be certain.” There are 21 mammography X-rays in public and private hospitals in New Zealand. But about 27 per cent of women at risk live outside hospital board areas and the best equipment is available to only 75 per cent of New Zealand women.