SRNT Newsletter

August/September 2006, Volume 12, Number 3

President's Column

by Ellen Gritz

Hello to all SRNT colleagues and friends,

Summer is here, and Houston is having its regular "monsoon" downpours followed by bright sun 15 minutes later! My orchids are thriving, as the photo accompanying the column attests. As long as I am President, you will all share my orchids in bloom!

The past few months have been filled with exciting activities, publications, and meetings related to nicotine and tobacco. As I mentioned in my last column, the NIH sponsored a State-of-the-Science Conference on Tobacco Use: Prevention, Cessation and Control on June 12-14. In brief, the conference "...statements are prepared by independent panels of health professionals and public representatives on the basis of (1) the results of a systematic literature review prepared under contract with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), (2) presentations by investigators working in areas relevant to the conference questions during a 2-day public session, (3) questions and statements from conference attendees during open discussion periods that are part of the public session, and (4) closed deliberations by the panel...." (quotation from Draft Statement). In my prior column, I named the SRNT members who were speakers at the meeting (including myself); I was extremely impressed by the outstanding presentations made by our members. In addition, there were approximately 600 attendees, with a quite a few SRNT members among them. The conference was an intense experience and we hope that we imparted the current state of research accomplishments and conclusions strongly. You can read the Draft Statement on the NIH Consensus Development Program website at http://consensus.nih.gov/ . The statement will remain posted for several weeks and comments are welcome on the draft.

Tobacco was again in the news when the New York Times Magazine Section (June 18) featured an article entitled, "If It's Good for Philip Morris, Can It Also Be Good for Public Health?" by Joe Nocera. The article presented an interview with Steven Parrish, senior vice president for corporate affairs at Altria Group and spokesperson for Philip Morris USA (a holding of Altria), as well comments by leading anti-tobacco advocates. The article discussed whether Mr. Parrish and Philip Morris have tried to become a good corporate citizen, through admission of the addictive and health-damaging (or lethal) effects of smoking. Altria supported regulation of cigarettes by the FDA two years ago, as did a number of other leading public health groups, an effort that ultimately failed to be passed into law. Many of us who read this article felt that it was too positive towards the tobacco industry, which continues to market deadly cigarettes here and far more aggressively abroad. However, there were substantial comments from anti-tobacco leaders and public health leaders. David Kessler, former commissioner of the FDA and current dean of the medical school of UCSF, was quoted as saying "...our job is to decrease the number of people who smoke to the lowest possible level. I'm not sure that is Steve's agenda yet." Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, commented, "...the jury is still out on what he really intends...One can look at the history here and wonder whether what Philip Morris is doing today is nothing more than a sophisticated version of what they have always done." Paul Billings, of the American Lung Association, said, "I think Philip Morris is aggressively trying to demonstrate it is changing, but its words don't match its deeds. In Marlboro, they still have the No. 1 brand for kids. I think they are just as despicable as the other tobacco companies." Stan Glantz, professor at the medical school of UCSF, and described in the article as "...perhaps the most uncompromising anti-tobacco activist in the country", commented, "If they had a shred of ethics, they wouldn't be in business." As researcher and scientist members of SRNT, I firmly believe we have a personal and professional responsibility to stay up to date on articles such as these, so that we can speak out with our own views when asked about the scientific bases of some of the issues discussed as well as about the public health issues at stake. The article can be found at the following website: www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/magazine/18tobacco.html?r=1&oref=slog (or upon request from the SRNT newsletter editor, ksaules@emich.edu).

On June 27th, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard H. Carmona issued a comprehensive and hard-hitting report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General. This report concludes that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS). As the NCI Cancer Bulletin (6/27/06) stated, "This finding is a major public health concern since nearly half of all nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke." Other major conclusions include: "Secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and in adults who do not smoke…Children exposed to SHS are at increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma...Smoking by parents causes respiratory symptoms and slows lung growth in their children...Eliminating smoking in indoor spaces fully protects nonsmokers from exposure to SHS. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot eliminate exposures of nonsmokers to SHS…The pooled evidence indicates a 20 to 30 percent increase in the risk of lung cancer from SHS exposure associated with living with a smoker…Pooled relative risks from meta-analyses indicate a 25 to 30 percent increase in the risk of coronary heart disease from exposure to SHS...Many millions of Americans, both children and adults, are still exposed to SHS in their homes and workplaces despite substantial progress in tobacco control." The report can be downloaded from http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco and purchased from http://bookstore.gpo.gov .

Finally, many SRNT members will be traveling to Washington DC July 9-15 for the combined meetings of the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) and the 13^th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health. Our Global Network Committee will be having two meetings during the WCTOH, and there will be much networking of scientists and anti-tobacco leaders. This meeting presents another opportunity for SRNT to expand its international membership as well as to demonstrate some of our scientific findings and our leadership in the tobacco control community. I will be there to participate and report back to you.

I hope that all of you thoroughly enjoy your summer. My husband, Mickey, and I are off to Indonesia for 3 weeks of SCUBA diving on July 21. Indonesia has some of the best diving in the world in the area described as the "coral triangle," which is located near Sulawesi, Indonesian New Guinea (West Papua) and Papua New Guinea. We will be diving for the second time at Komodo National Park (home of the famous carrion eating reptiles, the Komodo Dragons; don't worry, I won't try to hand-feed them), with a stop in beautiful Bali to search for folk art, some of the loveliest in the world.

All best wishes,