Yahrzeit of my mother Edith Zahavy

We are observing today the 26th Yahrzeit of my mother Edith Zahavy (aleha hashalom).

We miss her so very much. She would have loved to see the progress of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and take pride in all of their accomplishments. She would have loved to read books to her great-grandchildren and to watch them play and grow.

She was born in NYC and attended the public schools in Washington Heights. She watched from her classroom window as they built the George Washington Bridge.

She graduated from Hunter High School, Hunter College and went on to a career in public service at the OPA and then into the field education. 

Together with my dad, she founded the Park East Day School when my father was rabbi at the Park East Synagogue, then called Congregation Zichron Ephraim. She subsequently taught in NYC public schools for many years.

She is interred on Har Hamenuchot in Jerusalem. Her beautiful memorial photo site is here.

Times: How did Jewish Actor Kirk Douglas Quit Smoking Cigarettes?

Kirk Douglas passed away at 103 today. He quit smoking cigarettes years ago. His story is below, reposted from 2010... Please, if you smoke, stop today!

On occasion, we suggest to people we know who smoke cigarettes, and sometimes even to random smoking strangers, that today is the perfect day to quit smoking cigarettes.

Here is Kirk Douglas' first person account from the Times in 2003 of why today is the best day of your life to quit smoking cigarettes. (Yes he was Jewish, born born Issur Danielovitch, now 92 years old. He played the Jewish Col. David 'Mickey' Marcus in the film, "Cast a Giant Shadow.")

If you do smoke cigarettes, please do quit today.

My First Cigarette, and My Last
By KIRK DOUGLAS
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

My father, a Russian peasant, came to this country in 1910. Like all of his pals, he smoked. It's hard for me to picture my father without a cigarette in his mouth.

My Plea - In Mommy Edith's Memory on her Birthday - Quit Smoking Cigarettes Today

My mother was a strong athletic woman. I believe that she would be alive and 97 years old today, if not for cigarettes.

In 2000 my mother Edith Zahavy passed away on the 4th day of Tammuz after six months of hospitalization at Mt. Sinai in NYC. She was 79.

For 63 years she smoked, mostly menthol cigarettes. The corporate tobacco pushers hooked her into addiction by giving her free samples outside her school, Hunter College, when she was a teenager. They supplied her habit for six decades.

For several years prior to her death she could hardly walk because of her profound vascular disease, heart disease and emphysema. Her last months in the hospital on a respirator were awful as all of the organs of her systems weakened and failed.

My mother was a beautiful, selfless, generous, creative, religious person who dedicated her whole life to her family, to her friends and to her students. She first brought us up (myself and my brother and sister) and then went on to teach in the NYC public schools. She also founded the Park East Day School.

She stood behind my father, me and my siblings through thick and thin. But through the years she always smoked, mostly Newports and Salems. When I was in high school she would send me down on Fridays to buy her Challahs for Shabbat and a pack of cigarettes for Friday.

As I remember her -- an active vibrant woman -- I plead with you -- if you smoke cigarettes -- QUIT TODAY. Please for the sake of the memory of my mother -- for your own sake -- for the sake of your spouse, your parents, your children, your friends -- please stop.

Photos

(Repost annually from 2006)

Start Today - Quit Smoking for Good

The Times has a good article on how to quit smoking.

The Cancer Society designated today as the great American smokeout day for this year.

The American Cancer Society is marking the 37th Great American Smokeout on November 15 by encouraging smokers to use the date to make a plan to quit, or to plan in advance and quit smoking that day. By quitting — even for one day — smokers will be taking an important step towards a healthier life – one that can lead to reducing cancer risk.

Smoking killed my mom in 2000. Chances are good that it will kill you too if you keep smoking. Quit.

Is Elena Kagan Jewish?

Yes, Solicitor General of the United States Elena Kagan is a Jew. She is also President Obama's nominee to be a justice on the Supreme Court.

Kagan was born to a Jewish family in New York City where she graduated from Hunter College High School (1977), the same school that our mom went to a generation earlier.

Kagan has had a stellar career serving as U Chicago professor of law, Harvard Law School Dean, a White House Counsel for Bill Clinton, and is highly ranked as a potential Supreme Court justice.

msnbc: Bradley Beach NJ Bans Cigarette Smoking on the Beach and Boardwalk

Smoking cigarettes makes you - and the people around you  - sick - even if you are outdoors.

Thank you Bradley Beach for taking this step towards eliminating all cigarette smoking from our state.

If you smoke cigarettes - you are killing yourself and your loved ones - please quit today.

Jersey Town Bans Smoking on Beach, Boardwalk, Sidewalk

Some towns down the Jersey Shore have banned smoking on their boardwalks. Others, like Belmar, have set up smoking zones on the beach but away from most sunbathers. But little Bradley Beach is about to one-up everybody.

The mayor and town council say they will soon pass an ordinance to ban smoking on the beach, the boardwalk, in fact, all the way out to the curb of Ocean Avenue (that includes a sidewalk)...more...

Times: Tisch Family's Newport Cigarettes Helped Kill My Mother

I was at Brown as a student at the same time that Tom Tisch was a student there. I held a Tisch Fellowship in the Religious Studies Department. Tisch has recently funded an endowed religion chair at Bard. Tom is now the Brown Chancellor.

Sorry Tommy but this is not business. This is personal. You and your family helped kill my mother.

The Tisch Family and Its Holdings


Delivering the Nicotine

My mother smoked Newports for years - the flagship cigarette brand of the Lorillard company - a business that made your Tisch family a fortune.

You see when I was 12 my mother would send me out on Friday to buy the challahs for Shabbat and a pack of Newports for her. She was hooked by your cigarette companies when she was a young woman. They gave her free sample cigarettes in front of Hunter College. They got her addicted, made fortunes from her and her friends, and killed her.

Now the Tisch family doesn't have the courage or decency to confess to the evil that they have fostered.

Tommy you realize that you bought your apartment at 740 Park Avenue with the money you made by killing my mother.

You can "help" as many causes as you wish, serve as chancellor of Brown, endow Jewish causes, build hospitals, you have the list of all the "good" things you have done.

Keep working at atoning for your sins. Perhaps on your balance sheet you believe you have offset the bad with the good.

But no matter how hard you work at it, this is personal, not business. You cannot offset or escape that you and your Newports helped to kill my mother.

In 2000 she died as a result of years of poisoning from the smoke she inhaled from those Newports. She died an agonizing death after years of suffering and six months of critical illnesses on a respirator in Mt. Sinai Hospital.

This is personal.

Profits in Hand, Wealthy Family Cuts Tobacco Tie
By STEPHANIE SAUL

Forty years ago, the New York business magnates Laurence A. Tisch and Preston Robert Tisch capitalized on growing public health concerns over smoking by buying a cigarette company at a bargain price.

It proved a good investment — even if the Tisch name has sometimes been linked to smoking’s health hazards, as when an airplane once trailed a banner over Long Island beaches reading “Larry Tisch sells cancer sticks.”

The tobacco company’s flagship Newport brand flourished, becoming the leading menthol cigarette and No. 2 among all brands, in large part because Newports are enormously popular among black smokers.

Now, the next generation of Tisches has removed tobacco from the portfolio of the conglomerate they lead, the Loews Corporation, spinning off its tobacco unit, Lorillard, as a stand-alone business, with the Newport brand representing more than 90 percent of the new company’s revenue. The new stock began trading Tuesday, and analysts have said the new company might be a takeover target.

Separating tobacco from Loews is a timely step for the socially and philanthropically prominent Tisch family, as Newport menthol cigarettes have lately been criticized by black antismoking advocates and others. While antismoking activists have long had difficulty reconciling the relationship between cigarettes and the civic-minded Tisches, the anti-Newport flare-up has added heat to the controversy.

Members of the Tisch family declined to comment for this article. But when the spinoff was announced late last year, James S. Tisch, the Loews chief executive, said it was not because “it is politically correct to get out of the business.”

From an initial investment of about $450 million to buy Lorillard in 1968, Loews has reaped big rewards. “Loews’s overall profit, excluding dividends, approximates $10 billion,” said Erik A. Bloomquist, a financial analyst for JPMorgan Securities.

Mr. Tisch has said that the cigarette business is simply no longer a focus of the Loews conglomerate, which has holdings in insurance, natural gas pipelines and offshore drilling, as well as its original focus, hotels.

Even before Tuesday’s spinoff Loews has been gradually reducing its stake in Lorillard. Since 2002, shares in Lorillard were available to the public through a tracking stock called Carolina Group.

And there is ample evidence of the Tisch family’s discomfort with tobacco. Joseph A. Califano Jr., the former federal health secretary under President Jimmy Carter, said he had known the Tisch family for years and that decades ago, “Larry Tisch was talking about finding a way to get rid of Lorillard.”

“I don’t think he was ever comfortable in that business,” Mr. Califano said. “I think the whole family was uncomfortable.”

In the spinoff, James and the other two Tisch family members on the Loews board, whose combined holdings amounted to about 6 percent of the stock in Loews, retained no stakes in the tobacco company or plan to hold executive or board positions in it. Other members of the family, who before the spinoff controlled about 17 percent of shares in Loews, did not disclose whether they would retain those shares or swap them for Lorillard stock.

The new shares rose more than 6 percent Tuesday, closing at $76.63.

Some analysts said it was unlikely that other family members had tendered their shares of Loews in exchange for Lorillard stock. “The clear message that they’re sending is, ‘We’re moving out of tobacco and we’re moving into energy,’ ” said Benjamin J. Bornstein, a partner at Omega Advisors, a $5.3 billion hedge fund that holds Loews stock.

Some public health experts say Newport, which rank near the top in smoking-machine tests of nicotine yield, may be among the unhealthiest varieties of cigarettes. That disturbs African-American antismoking advocates, particularly because documents disclosed in tobacco lawsuits reveal that Lorillard pursued a marketing strategy aimed at black smokers. By the company’s own tally, just over half of Newport customers are black.

There has been a backlash in recent weeks over news that the tobacco legislation pending in Congress contains a special protection for menthol cigarettes. A black antismoking group withdrew its support from the legislation, citing the bill’s special exemption of menthol from a list of banned flavorings.

Ten former federal health officials, including seven secretaries of health, wrote Congress last week demanding that the bill specifically ban menthol.

One of the letter signers, Mr. Califano, said in an interview that Newport was a particular scourge because evidence suggested that menthol, by masking the harsh taste of tobacco, makes cigarettes easier to start. And the cigarette’s high nicotine yield also may make it more difficult to stop smoking, he said, although some tobacco researchers caution that the amount of nicotine taken in by smokers varies widely from person to person.

“It’s sort of a pincer attack on the smoker,” Mr. Califano said. “We’ll make it easier for you to smoke, and we’ll put more of the addicting substance in it to make sure you’re hooked.” Mr. Califano now runs the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

In a statement this week, Michael W. Robinson, a spokesman for Lorillard, said the nicotine ratings of Newport “fall within the same range” as those of other popular full flavor brands.

Mr. Robinson released data showing that nicotine yield in Newport 80, the most popular brand, had declined to 2.21 milligrams in 2006 from 2.55 milligrams in 2004, based on reports submitted to the tobacco program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

In reports submitted to the Federal Trade Commission, which uses a different testing method, Mr. Robinson said, Newport delivered the same nicotine as equivalent styles of Kool, Salem, Camel, and Camel menthol.

Laurence Tisch died in 2003 and his brother, Preston Robert, died in 2005. A spokeswoman for Loews said that the three Tisch children on the board — besides James, who is Laurence’s son, they are James’s brother Andrew and their cousin Jonathan Tisch, who are co-chairmen — would not be interviewed for this article.

The spokeswoman, Candace Leeds, said the company could not talk because of the pending transaction. To New Yorkers, the Tisch family may be best known for philanthropic works that are evident throughout the city — including a children’s zoo at Central Park to a hospital at New York University to galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Tisches’ civic reach extends beyond New York, as well. When Senator Edward M. Kennedy had an operation for brain cancer last week, he chose a surgeon at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University, located about an hour from Lorillard’s tobacco operations in Greensboro, N.C.

Other prominent members of the younger Tisch generation include Thomas J. Tisch, who runs the Four Partners investment fund and is chancellor of Brown University. Daniel J. Tisch is on the board of trustees of New York University and runs another family-affiliated investment fund, Mentor Partners. Steven E. Tisch, a producer credited with films including “Forrest Gump” and “The Pursuit of Happyness,” is also chairman of the New York Giants.

Jonathan Tisch, who is also the chairman of Loews Hotels and is a former chairman of New York City’s tourism bureau, is active in the Democrat Party. He is also a benefactor of Tufts University, which named its college of citizenship and public service after him.

But tobacco has long been associated with the Tisch name, too, in ways not always flattering.

It was Andrew Tisch, then Lorillard’s chairman and chief executive, who appeared alongside executives from the other six largest tobacco companies at a historic Congressional hearing in April 1994. There, all seven testified that they did not believe cigarettes were addictive.

When Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, asked Mr. Tisch whether he knew that cigarettes caused cancer, Mr. Tisch answered, “I do not believe that.”

The next year, while Laurence Tisch was chairman of CBS, the television network drew harsh criticism by killing a planned “60 Minutes” segment about a tobacco industry whistle-blower, Jeffrey Wigand. The segment ran the following year, after Loews announced plans to sell its CBS stake to Westinghouse.

Other incidents in which cigarettes have clouded the Tisches’ social standing include the outcry in 1997 when James was nominated to head the Jewish philanthropy the UJA-Federation of New York.

Leaders of two Jewish groups sent letters opposing the nomination, saying Mr. Tisch’s tobacco industry ties might damage the organization’s reputation. Mr. Tisch nonetheless became the federation’s president.

The airplane banner incident occurred in 1993 after a Newport advertising plane repeatedly flew over Long Island beaches, including the Fire Island home of the financial writer Andrew Tobias, a supporter of antismoking causes. Mr. Tobias recently recalled that he had hired another plane to tail it, towing the banner reading “Larry Tisch sells cancer sticks.”

“There haven’t been any planes on those beaches since,” Mr. Tobias said.

Campaign Against Jewish Children Smoking Cigarettes on Purim

Ultra-Orthodox children in Israel are given their first cigarette on Purim.

This Israeli anti-smoking campaign is clear - smoking cigarettes is killer number one.

Rabbis to battle smoking in haredi public
'Cigarette- the number one killer' - Anti-smoking campaign launched...
Jerusalem Municipality, leading haredi leaders join forces to fight widespread phenomenon of smoking in sector through halachic rulings, educational campaign
by Neta Sela

Leading rabbis and the Jerusalem Municipality have joined forces in a battle against the widespread habit of smoking in the haredi public, in light of studies indicating that the sector has the highest rate of smokers in Israeli society.

The Health Ministry and local haredi authorities will also take part in the effort.

In a campaign that will be launched Thursday, rabbis will issue halachic rulings banning smoking. The rulings will be posted on bulletin boards and buses, and published in the community's pamphlets.

The decision to launch the campaign ahead of Purim was based on the fact that during the holiday it is usually considered legitimate for children to smoke cigarettes.

"Studies have shown that most haredi smokers smoked their first cigarette during Purim, as part of a defective practice which permits teenagers, and even children, to smoke on the holiday," Jerusalem Municipal Council Member Shlomo Rosenstein, explained.

"The campaign was made possible in view of the realization among all the bodies entrusted with this issue, that the haredi sector needs a campaign that speaks its language and addresses its codes," added Rosenstein, who heads the project.
Highest smoker rate

In addition to the distribution of relevant halachic rulings, the municipality also plans to institute educational programs on smoking prevention in schools and yeshivot, and open a special training program for educators.

Furthermore, rabbis and yeshiva heads will soon publish a petition slamming the practice of "the first cigarette" on Purim.

Yair Amikam, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, said that medical studies indicate that smoking is more prevalent in the haredi sector than in any other sector in Israel, with the rate of smokers standing at 18.5%.

"In the haredi population it is very common to smoke in public places such as yeshivot, reception halls and so on," Amikam added.

[repost from 2008]

Two Years and 880,000 Deaths Later - Smoking is (still) a Sin - Rabbinical Council of America

Have the rabbis done anything more about this since we posted this last, a year ago?

So another 440,000 have died. Some effective ban!

440,000 people in the US die each year from cigarettes.

The US Surgeon General Reports:

... tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the United States, causing approximately 440,000 deaths each year and costing approximately $157 billion in annual health-related economic losses.

We ought to put a little more effort this year into our anti-smoking efforts in the US, in Israel and around the world.

What can you do? If you smoke - stop. And more. Ask all the smokers that you know to stop smoking.

Won't you please use your blogs to spread this message and to help save lives?

And yes the news now (7/5/2006) is that rabbis say that smoking is a sin.

JTA - Rabbinical committee bans smoking - (finally does something useful) - Breaking News:

A committee of the centrist Orthodox rabbinical organization said Jewish law is opposed to smoking.

The halachah committee of the Rabbinical Council of America said the decision is based on a combination of the value placed by Jewish sources on health and scientific findings on the dangers of tobacco products.

The decision calls on all Jews to avoid or quit smoking.

RCA Release -- Text of the Ban on Tobacco

Signatories on the ban:

This teshuvah is issued unanimously by the Va’ad Halacha of the RCA, whose members are Rabbi Yosef Adler, Rabbi Kenneth Auman, Rabbi Asher Bush (Chairman), Rabbi Daniel Feldman, Rabbi Tzvi Flaum, Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Rabbi Chaim Jachter, Rabbi Yaacov Lerner, and Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky.

It is issued with the haskamah of the following members of the Va’ad HaPoskim: Rabbi Dovid Cohen, Rabbi Michael Rosensweig, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Rabbi Gedalia Schwartz, and Rabbi Mordechai Willig.

WHO: Ban All Cigarette Ads Worldwide

Do it now!

WHO Calls on Governments to Ban Tobacco Advertising
By Diane Smith

The World Health Organization (WHO) called on all governments to forbid all sorts of tobacco advertising. The main goal of this measure is to protect the world's youth from becoming addicted to tobacco. WHO estimated that tobacco could cause as much as one billion premature deaths this century.

The call was made by the WHO on World No Tobacco Day. The surveys carried out by the U.N. organization have shown that the young people who are more exposed to tobacco advertisement are also more likely to start smoking and less likely to quit.

WHO officials accused tobacco producers of using increasingly sophisticated marketing techniques to ensnare young people. The most exposed segment of the population is the girls in poorer countries.

The U.N. organization said only 5% of the world's population was covered by comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

The WHO also said the existing restrictions aren’t enough to efficiently care for the world's 1.8 billion young people who are targeted by tobacco advertising through the internet, magazines and films.

According to the survey, the number of female and adolescent smokers has tripled in the last 10 years in Russia, a country with very few laws against smoking. On the other side, in Canada, a country which severely restricted tobacco advertising, the number of smokers is at its lowest in 40 years.

"The tobacco industry continues to spread its deadly product as the vector of the tobacco epidemic. The tobacco company spends tens of billions of dollars to market its products and tens of billions of dollars a year around the world to particularly develop and study and market to young people, especially in developing countries," said Dr. Douglas Bettcher, the director of WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative.

Times: Virginia Commonwealth University Sold Out its Ethics to Lethal Cigarette Companies

This article is about as damning as any I have ever read about the breach of ethics at a public university.

This university must be censured by all people with a scintilla of morality.

I will quote only the last paragraph, summing up what VCU has done:

“It’s counter to the entire purpose and rationale of a university,” said David Rosner, a professor of public health and history at Columbia University. “It’s not a consulting company; it’s not just another commercial firm.”

Go to the Times please to read the entire report by ALAN FINDER, "At One University, Tobacco Money Is a Secret."

Times: Science Concludes You and All of Your Friends Should Stop Smoking

It's so important to stop the massacre of 400,000 Americans each years that is caused by the cigarette corporations.

Now the Times says that quitting in clusters, social groups, is the most effective way.

So get together with two friends and quit today!

For Smokers, Quitting Is Tied to Social Circles
By GINA KOLATA

For years, smokers have been exhorted to take the initiative and quit: use a nicotine patch, chew nicotine gum, take a prescription medication that can help, call a help line, just say no. But a new study finds that stopping is seldom an individual decision.

Smokers tend to quit in groups, the study finds, which means smoking cessation programs should work best if they focus on groups rather than individuals. It also means that people may help many more than just themselves by quitting — quitting can have a ripple effect prompting an entire social network to break the habit.

The study, by Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, followed thousands of smokers and nonsmokers for 32 years, from 1971 until 2003, studying them as part of a large network of relatives, co-workers, neighbors, friends and friends of friends.

It was a time when the percentage of adult smokers in the United States fell to 21 percent from 45 percent. As the investigators watched the smokers and their social networks, they saw what they said was a striking effect — smokers had formed little social clusters and, as the years went by, entire clusters of smokers were stopping en masse. So were clusters of clusters that were only loosely connected.

Dr. Christakis described watching the vanishing clusters as like lying on your back in a field, looking up at stars that were burning out. “It’s not like one little star turning off at a time,” he said. “Whole constellations are blinking off at once.”

As cluster after cluster of smokers disappeared, those that remained were pushed to the margins of society, isolated, with fewer friends, fewer social connections. “Smokers used to be the center of the party,” Dr. Fowler said, “but now they’ve become wallflowers.”

“We’ve known smoking was bad for your physical health,” he said. “But this shows it also is bad for your social health.”

Smokers, he said, “are likely to drive friends away.” more>>>>

NYT: Cigarette Companies and Congress Want to Keep Killing Blacks

Stop killing blacks with cigarettes? It's just not "doable."

Cigarette Bill Treats Menthol With Leniency
By STEPHANIE SAUL

Some public health experts are questioning why menthol, the most widely used cigarette flavoring and the most popular cigarette choice of African-American smokers, is receiving special protection as Congress tries to regulate tobacco for the first time.

The legislation, which would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to oversee tobacco products, would try to reduce smoking’s allure to young people by banning most flavored cigarettes, including clove and cinnamon.

But those new strictures would exempt menthol — even though menthol masks the harsh taste of cigarettes for beginners and may make it harder for the addicted to kick the smoking habit. For years, public health authorities have worried that menthol might be a factor in high cancer rates in African-Americans.

The reason menthol is seen as politically off limits, despite those concerns, is that mentholated brands are so crucial to the American cigarette industry. They make up more than one-fourth of the $70 billion American cigarette market and are becoming increasingly important to the industry leader, Philip Morris USA, without whose lobbying support the legislation might have no chance of passage.

“I would have been in favor of banning menthol,” said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, who supports the bill. “But as a practical matter that simply wasn’t doable.” ...

Washington Post: Women Who Quit Cigarettes Live Longer

My mom passed away 8 years ago - killed by cigarettes.

If you smoke, please quit and live.

Women Who Quit Smoking Lower Heart Risks Quickly
By Amanda Gardner, HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- New research shows that women who quit smoking have a 21 percent lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease within five years of extinguishing their last cigarette.

The risks of dying from other conditions also decline after quitting, although the time frame varies depending on the disease.

"The harms of smoking are reversible and can decline to the level of nonsmokers," said study author Stacey Kenfield, whose report is in the May 7 issue of theJournal of the American Medical Association. "For some conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, it can take more than 20 years, but there is a rapid reduction for others."

"It's never too early to stop, and it's never too late to stop," added Kenfield, who is a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

Smoking is still the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Not only does tobacco smoke cause lung cancer, it is also implicated in heart disease, other cancers and respiratory diseases.

According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 3 million people in industrialized countries will have died as a result of tobacco use by 2030, and an additional 7 million people in developing countries face the same fate.

This research is a continued follow-up on the Nurses' Health Study, a large trial involving more than 100,000 women. Scientists now have 22 years of data on the participants.

Current smokers had almost triple the risk of overall death compared with women who had never smoked.

Current smokers also had a 63 percent increased risk for colon cancer compared with never-smokers, while former smokers had a 23 percent increased risk. There was no significant association between smoking and ovarian cancer.

And women who started smoking earlier in life were at a higher risk for overall mortality, of dying from respiratory disease and from any smoking-related disease.

However, a smoker's overall risk of dying returned to the level of a never-smoker 20 years after quitting. The overall risk declined 13 percent within the first five years of abstaining.

Most of the excess risk of dying from coronary heart disease vanished within five years of quitting.

For chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the return to normal took almost 20 years, although there was an 18 percent reduction in the risk of death seen within five to 10 years after quitting.

And the risk for lung cancer didn't return to normal for 30 years after quitting, although there was a 21 percent reduction in risk within the first five years compared with women who continued to smoke.

Many previous studies on tobacco use had focused on men and on lung cancer, the authors stated. They also only looked at smoking status at the beginning of the study. "We got smoking information every two years, so we feel we have a more accurate estimate of current and past smoking," Kenfield said. "We saw increased risks for current smokers [than previous studies], and we think that's because we know who the current smokers are."

"This shows the power of quitting smoking," said Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge, La. "We've known this for a number of years, but the beauty of this study is it is a very large and well-studied group of people. When I tell people to quit smoking, I say the effect of the heart precedes that of the lungs. If you've smoked, you need to be cognizant that you're still at an increased risk of lung cancer."

More information

Visit the American Lung Association for more on women and smoking.

SOURCES: Stacey A. Kenfield, Sc.D., postdoctoral research fellow, department of epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston; Jay Brooks, M.D., chairman, hematology/oncology, Ochsner Health System, Baton Rouge, La.; May 7, 2008,Journal of the American Medical Association

Will the Pro-Life Pope Speak Out Against --- Smoking Cigarettes?

While in the US I hope this strict Pope will speak out for the 485,000 victims who die prematurely each year of diseases caused by smoking cigarettes.

I know however that they chances of this happening are slim and none. (Not Virginia Slims...)

Here is what one public health professional has recently written on the subject:

Some twenty years ago, while preparing a book on the history of the cigarette in America (A Smoking Gun: How the Tobacco Industry Gets Away With Murder, Stickley, 1984), I wrote to the Cardinal of New York and asked him why the Church had no pronouncements on cigarettes, the leading cause of premature death -- a clear threat to the value of life. The letter I received back was scathing, calling me stupid and naive, arguing that I had obviously not traveled outside the U.S. much and seen poverty and hunger -- otherwise, I would not be worrying about something as trivial as cigarette smoking.

As a public health professional, I do not consider 485,000 premature deaths annually in the United States to be "trivial." And I am outraged to see the ongoing marketing of cigarettes here in our country. But the recently-announced move by Philip Morris to addict hundreds of millions more people in Africa, China, Korea, Russia, and beyond is nothing short of appalling. As this international massacre continues -- indeed, intensifies -- is silence by the Church compatible with a pro-life commitment, or is it just sheer hypocrisy?

Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).

Here is a cigarette ad from the Phillipines:

"Philippines: Pray for health In the Philippines, with a large and devout Catholic population, various wall calendars tout popular tobacco brands. This one is from the Fortune Tobacco Company."

Video: Cigarette Murderers Pay to Humiliate the FDA

Thanks to Roastfrog.net for the mention and the link to this video. Paid for by the cigarette murders who must have had such a good time making this ad to humiliate the FDA.

And here is the web site of the actor Andy Martello who was somehow roped into the awfulness of this gig.

Times: Cigarette Pushers Mock the FDA

It's not just that the killers who push cigarettes on kids and adults want to prevent the FDA from regulating them.

It's that to do this, they mock the FDA in "comical" ads.

Remember these Cigarette pushers are the fellas who kill 400,000 Americans each year. Kill and Mock. Kill and Mock.

Despicable.

Reynolds Ads Say Tobacco Oversight Is Burden F.D.A. Doesn’t Need
By STEPHANIE SAUL

What do a vaudeville-style plate spinner and the Food and Drug Administration have in common?

Both are trying to keep too many plates in the air, according to a new advertising campaign by the tobacco giant Reynolds American.

As legislation moves through Congress that would give the F.D.A. power to regulate the tobacco industry, Reynolds — with brands that include Camel cigarettes — is attacking what it views as the bill’s vulnerability: a weak, overextended F.D.A.

The company has begun an advertising campaign that includes a television commercial using a comic plate-spinning routine to illustrate its point — that the F.D.A. is overwhelmed and already unable properly to oversee its core mission of ensuring food and drug safety. So why, the ads ask, should Congress add more to its plate?

“Their own scientific experts warn that the F.D.A. can’t do their job properly and warn that lives could be at risk,” the ads say.

The ads, in print as well as on television, are running in Washington as well as in selected regional markets in the districts of crucial members of Congress. The campaign is a response to the momentum of the legislation, whose proponents have been pushing for regulation for more than a decade. Backers say that adoption is a real possibility, even during a presidential election year.

The bill, with bipartisan support, has more than 50 Senate sponsors and 215 sponsors in the House. A Senate committee has already approved the bill, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to take it up on Wednesday.

“This is the most significant progress we have made in a decade toward enacting this bill and we are confident it will pass this year,” said William V. Corr, the executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

In a statement, Mr. Corr said it was no surprise that Reynolds was behind the ads because the company had been “the worst offender when it comes to marketing tobacco products to children.”

Last year, six states sued the company’s R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company subsidiary, contending that a promotion in Rolling Stone magazine violated a 1998 agreement not to use cartoons in advertising.

The suit focused on ads for Camel on the cover of a special fold-out section. The section, called Indie Rock Universe, contained graphics intended to look like doodling in a student notebook. Reynolds said the section was produced by Rolling Stone and the ads should not have been placed near the drawings.

In its new campaign, Reynolds introduced a Web site, fdaconcerns.org, and began the television ads last week in nearly a dozen regional media markets.

A spokesman for Reynolds, Tommy Payne, said the company hoped that members of Congress would see the ads and ask, “Is this the best time to pass this legislation, given the problems we have with the core mission of the F.D.A.?” Mr. Payne would not say how much the company was spending. “It’s enough to convey the message,” he said.

One target of the TV campaign is Representative G. K. Butterfield, a Democrat from the home state of Reynolds, North Carolina, who says he supports tobacco regulation. Mr. Butterfield is also a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

A spokesman for Mr. Butterfield, Ken Willis, said the ads began running last week in the congressman’s district, a heavy tobacco-growing region of northeastern North Carolina, where the spots have been featured during televised N.C.A.A. basketball tournament games.

The commercials ask that viewers notify their representatives about concerns over the proposed regulation. Mr. Willis said Mr. Butterfield’s office had received only two calls.

“It obviously doesn’t scare the farmers in the way it might have in years past,” Mr. Willis said, adding that farmers still have markets for their tobacco, in some cases abroad.

While the nation’s biggest tobacco company, Philip Morris, supports the legislation, Reynolds is opposed. A spokesman for Lorillard Tobacco said the company had not yet taken a position.

Analysts contend that the bill could benefit Philip Morris over its smaller competitors. By imposing tighter restrictions on advertising, the new regulations could make it harder for Reynolds to market Camel — No. 3 in the United States market — against the industry’s top seller, Marlboro, which is made by Philip Morris. The No. 2 cigarette brand is Newport, marketed by Lorillard.

Some members of Congress have expressed concerns similar to those raised by Reynolds, saying that the F.D.A. is already overwhelmed. But the bill tries to address that concern by establishing a new center for tobacco regulation within the F.D.A. It would be financed by tobacco industry fees projected at more than $5 billion over the next 10 years.

The bill would also ban candy-flavored cigarettes and give the F.D.A. authority to regulate the content of tobacco products.

BBC: Cigarette-Holcaust Kills 5 Million People Every Year

It is a disgrace that we allow this to continue year after year.

BBC NEWS: Smoking 'kills five million a year'

Almost five million people died from smoking-related diseases across the world in 2000, researchers estimate.

A study published in The Lancet found that for the first time, deaths from smoking that year were as high in the developing world as in industrialised countries.

Over three-quarters of deaths among smokers worldwide were among men.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston say the only way to stop deaths increasing is to improve education and prevention work.

They looked at smoking deaths globally, including the developing world, where an estimated 930m of the world's 1.1 billion smokers live.

The researchers estimated that there were 4.83m premature deaths from smoking in 2000 - 2.41m in developing countries and 2.4m in industrialised countries.

In developing countries, 84% of deaths were among men.

Increase expected

Cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of death, killing 1.69m people, followed by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (970,000) and lung cancer (850,000).

The researchers used US data on deaths from lung cancer as an indication of smoking-related risk, plus data from 125 individual countries.

Dr Majid Ezzati from Harvard School of Public Health, said an accumulation of the health risks of smoking plus population growth and ageing would mean smoking-related deaths in developing countries would increase over coming decades.

He said: "Mortality as a result of smoking will rise substantially unless effective interventions and policies that curb and reduce smoking among men and prevent increases among women in these countries are implemented."

Amanda Sandford of the campaign group Action on Smoking and Health told BBC News Online there were a number of factors involved in the increase in smoking-related deaths in developing countries.

"Partly it's because in a growing population, so there are more people are smoking.

"But it also stems back to the actions of the tobacco companies,

"They are aggressively marketing their products to developing countries.

"I think we'll be seeing this until the countries themselves put a stop to it."

Ms Sandford added education and prevention measures were essential to reduce smoking-related deaths.

Global killers
Cardiovascular disease - 12m a year
Cancer - 6.2m a year
HIV/Aids - 3m a year
TB - 2m a year
Malaria - 1m

Tobacco Executives Scheme to Kill More People

Everybody is crowing about how cancer deaths have decreased. The tobacco industry has plans to reverse that trend.

If you smoke, please quit now. Tobacco executives kill 400,000 people each year in the US and they want to kill more

The distressing news via Forbes:

Big Tobacco Boosting Nicotine in Cigarettes: Study

THURSDAY, Jan. 18 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. tobacco companies increased the level of addictive nicotine in their cigarettes by 11 percent from 1998 to 2005, and did so in a variety of ways, new research shows.

The tobacco companies accomplished the increase not only be intensifying the concentration of nicotine in the tobacco but also by modifying several design features of cigarettes to increase the number of puffs per cigarette taken by smokers, according to a Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study.

Analyzing major brand name cigarettes sold in Massachusetts, the researchers found that increases in smoke nicotine yield per cigarette averaged 1.6 percent each year over those seven years. Nicotine is the primary addictive ingredient in cigarettes.

Increases in smoke-nicotine yields occurred in each of the four major manufacturers and across all the major cigarette market categories, including light and ultralight.

The findings were expected to be presented Thursday at the Harvard School of Public Health.

"Cigarettes are finely-tuned delivery devices, designed to perpetuate a tobacco pandemic," research team co-leader Howard Koh, associate dean for public health practice at HSPH and a former commissioner of public health in Massachusetts, said in a prepared statement.

"Yet precise information about these products remains shrouded in secrecy, hidden from the public. Policy actions today requiring the tobacco industry to disclose critical information about nicotine and product design could protect the next generation from the tragedy of addiction," Koh said.

"Our findings call into serious question whether the tobacco industry has changed at all in its pursuit of addicting smokers since signing the Master Settlement Agreement of 1998 with the State Attorneys General," research team co-leader Gregory Connolly, program director of the Tobacco Control Research Program at HSPH, said in a prepared statement.

"Our analysis shows that the companies have been subtly increasing the drug nicotine year by year in their cigarettes, without any warning to consumers, since the settlement. Scrutiny by the Attorneys General is imperative," Connolly said.

He added that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has filed proposed federal legislation "that would address this abuse and bring the tobacco industry under the rules that regulate other manufacturers of drugs."

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about tobacco addiction.