For Immediate Release
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TOBACCO COMPANIES TURN ATTENTION TO GLOBAL MARKET
New Research In Denmark, Brazil Shows Smoking's Toll on Women, Babies

SAN FRANCISCO--Faced with declining tobacco use and new regulations in the United States, tobacco companies increasingly are focusing their attention on the global marketplace, according to experts speaking here at the American Lung Association/American Thoracic Society International Conference.

Dr. Jonathan Samet, Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said that 1997 has been a year of remarkable changes for the tobacco industry in the United States. Attorneys general in more than half the states are suing the tobacco industry to recoup costs of treating smoking-related illness, the Liggett Group tobacco company agreed to a settlement of this litigation, and talks have been taking place between the tobacco industry and the some of the attorneys general and some health groups to try to devise a comprehensive settlement of litigation.

On May 17, the American Lung Association Board of Directors adopted a resolution opposing any comprehensive settlement with the tobacco industry. "Our Board acted because we know all too well that the tobacco industry has never demonstrated an ability to negotiate in good faith or live up to its promises," said ALA Managing Director John R. Garrison.

These tobacco settlement talks are limited to the United States, Dr. Samet pointed out, yet smoking is a worldwide problem.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are about 1.1 billion smokers worldwide, about one-third of the global population aged 15 years and over. The vast majority of these, 800 million, are in developing countries, most of whom (700 million) are men. In China alone, WHO estimates, there are about 300 million smokers (90% men), about the same number as in all developed countries combined.

Globally 47% of men and 12% of women smoke, according to WHO. According to Dr. Judith Mackay, Director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control in Hong Kong, "Any settlement within the United States must have a clause that allows other countries to take similar action. If the U.S. can reclaim health costs without giving too much away, I think many countries will be interested in similar settlements."

Dr. Mackay predicted that the global tobacco epidemic will dramatically worsen by 2025. She estimated that by 2025, there will be about 1.64 billion smokers. "By 2020, tobacco is expected to cause more premature death and disability than any single disease," she said. "Deaths will have increased from 3 million to over 10 million annually, with 7 million in developing countries."

She predicted that there will be virtually no tobacco growing within the USA as the companies have shifted to growing and manufacturing overseas, where overheads are less and potential markets are larger.

"Changes in consumption and mortality will depend, as now, on action by governments to prevent and reduce the epidemic," she said.

She said that the increase of women smokers will be a significant public health problem, particularly in developing nations.

One new study presented at the conference highlighted the health impact of smoking and women outside the United States. Researchers in Copenhagen, Denmark who followed more than 30,000 people for an average of 16 years found that death rates in smokers were approximately double those of people who never smoked. Smoking increased the risk of death overall, as well as death specifically from respiratory disease, heart disease, lung cancer and other tobacco-related cancers.

Women were especially hard hit by smoking, reported lead researcher Dr. Eva Prescott of the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation in Denmark. She found that female smokers had a higher risk than male smokers of respiratory and vascular disease, including heart attack and stroke. She concluded that women may be more sensitive than men to some of the harmful effects of smoking. "We don't know why this is," Dr. Prescott said. "It may be because their lungs are smaller and therefore sustain more damage from smoking, or the association between smoking and other risk factors differs by gender."

A Brazilian study presented at the conference found that newborns of mothers who smoked had high levels of IgE, an antibody that is responsible for the majority of allergic reactions, in the blood of their umbilical cords, compared with babies whose mothers did not smoke. The study of 492 newborns and their mothers found that newborns whose mothers stopped smoking during pregnancy had similar levels of IgE compared with babies whose mothers didn't smoke, reported Dr. Fernando Machado of the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.

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