American Lung Association – Oral Cancer News

Big Tobacco Spending More Than a Super PAC to Defeat Cancer Research

Source: Livestrong.org My job requires me to be online all day keeping an ear to the ground on major issues related to cancer. I knew the Prop 29 fight in California was going to be fought against Big Tobacco, but I didn’t realize the scale of their funding machine. Why are LIVESTRONG, American Cancer Society, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and many other health organizations for this proposition? Because it keeps kids from smoking, funds much needed cancer research and prevention programs. So it won’t surprise you that Big Tobacco is the driving force against the cancer research prop. Although it is not surprising, the amount of money they are pumping into California is unreal. To date, Big Tobacco has funneled 40 million dollars into their anti cancer research initiative compared to Yes on 29 Coalition’s 8 million raised. What I find most telling is when it comes to where these funds are from. Check out this visualization from MapLight.org – a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that reveals money’s influence on politics. This news story was resourced by the Oral Cancer Foundation, and vetted for appropriateness and accuracy.

Charlotte Parker2012-05-17T09:52:34-07:00May, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

New Report: States Slash Tobacco Prevention Funding by 36%, Spend Less than 2 Cents of Every Tobacco Dollar to Fight Tobacco Use

Source: TobaccoFreeKids.org WASHINGTON, DC – States have slashed funding for programs to reduce tobacco use by 12 percent in the past year and by 36 percent over the past four years, threatening the nation’s progress against tobacco, according to a report released today by a coalition of public health organizations. The states this year (Fiscal Year 2012) will collect a near-record $25.6 billion in revenue from the 1998 state tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 1.8 percent of it – $456.7 million – on programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. This means the states are spending less than two cents of every dollar in tobacco revenue to fight tobacco use. Both the total amounts states are spending on tobacco prevention programs and the percentage of tobacco revenue spent on these programs are the lowest since 1999, when the states first received significant tobacco settlement funds. With nearly 20 percent of Americans still smoking, the report warns that continued progress against tobacco use – the nation’s number one cause of preventable death – is at risk unless states increase funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs. The report also calls on states to increase tobacco taxes and, for states that have yet to do so, to enact strong smoke-free laws that apply to all workplaces, restaurants and bars. The report further calls on the federal government to launch a national tobacco prevention and cessation campaign, including a mass-media campaign and support for telephone quitlines, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-01T12:15:26-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Tobacco is Estimated to Kill a Billion People in this Century

Source: San Francisco Chronicle For all the debate and pain and money expended on our ongoing "drug war' - which is too much a failing, endless one - the worst drug of all is too often unmentioned, but kills and maims more than the rest of them put together. And it's legal. Tobacco abuse is projected to cause a billion premature deaths in this century; To put it another way, until and unless we have a nuclear war, the tobacco industry will continue killing more people than any other man-made cause. This true in just about any region, but here in California, there are nearly four million smokers, and as the American Lung Association reminds us, "Tobacco-related illness remains the number one preventable cause of death in the state, responsible for more than 36,000 deaths each year - that's more people lost to tobacco than alcohol, HIV/AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined." The national toll is about 438,000 deaths per year. One of them was my dad, but I hated tobacco long before it claimed him. In any event, the annual UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education symposium again keyed off on the "billion lives" estimate and showcased ongoing efforts to apply research to decreasing that daunting figure. This year, American Cancer Society CEO John Seffrin. PhD said that the 12 million cigarettes smoked each minute meant an ever-increasing morbidity and mortality, despite whatever progress, with a tripling of disease and death in the developing [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-13T10:36:59-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

After a long battle with 3 different types of cancer, a footloose Orlando man takes on a 2,650-mile hike

At 68, John Casterline has beaten advanced-stage lung cancer, prostate cancer and throat cancer. Last month, he finished radiation treatments. Just one week ago, his doctors pronounced him cancer-free. So what is he doing to celebrate? Forget Disney World. Starting April 28, this Orlando retiree will be hiking 2,650 miles, from Canada to Mexico, along the Pacific Crest Trail — a route that will climb above 13,000 feet elevation and require him to average 20 miles a day. "I expect that I will experience weather that is too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry and too perfect," he wrote in his journal a year ago, when he began training seriously for the hike. "I will encounter rattle snakes, bears, and maybe even mountain lions. … The mosquitoes will be horrendous at times, the hills steep, the rocks sharp, the trail blocked, the wind very strong. [Sleep will be] occasionally fitful and I'll be carrying a backpack with 30-plus pounds." But if you have to ask why he's doing it, he wrote, you wouldn't understand. It is not simply that he hopes to raise $26,500 for the dramatically underfunded battle against lung cancer, a disease expected to claim the lives of 160,000 Americans this year — more than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined. Nor is it about creating some kind of legacy. Though followers can read his ongoing exploits on lungcancerhike.org, the website is intended to give fellow cancer survivors hope — and to collect donations for the American [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-04-21T13:49:22-07:00April, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

New Report: States Continue Drastic Cuts to Tobacco Prevention Programs

Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation This year (Fiscal Year 2011) states will collect $23.5 billion in revenue from the 1998 tobacco settlement funds and tobacco taxes. Alarmingly, though, the states will only spend two percent of that amount—$517.9 million—on programs to prevent smoking and help smokers quit. That’s the lowest amount of tobacco prevention program funding since 1999, when the states first received tobacco settlement funds, according to a report released today by a coalition of public health organizations, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). U.S. adult smoking rates have stalled at 20.6 percent after decades of decline. Echoing the recommendations of major public health organizations such as the Institute of Medicine, the President’s Cancer Panel and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the report recommends that states increase funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs, increase tobacco taxes and enact strong smoke-free laws that apply to all workplaces, restaurants and bars. In addition, the federal government should robustly fund and implement the national tobacco prevention strategy unveiled on November 10, 2010 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The report, titled “A Broken Promise to Our Children: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 12 Years Later,” was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association and RWJF. These organizations have issued yearly reports assessing whether the states have kept their promise to use funds from the tobacco settlements—estimated to total $246 billion over the first [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-11-17T12:20:18-07:00November, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Experts warn that new “smokeless” tobacco products are still dangerous

Source: FOX21News Author: Tracee Tolentino DULUTH - The tobacco industry is offering new products and finding new ways to attract and keep customers. However, health advocates say the new products are just as dangerous, and the customers are getting younger and younger. "Most 6-year-olds, if you queried them, they would know who Joe Camel is," said Michele Hughes of the Douglas County Health Department. Now, with the introduction of new smokeless tobacco alternatives, there are new ways that young adults can get hooked to nicotine. “They’re out there as the ‘good guy’ or look, these aren't quite as harmful, but indeed these are deadly products that lead to a lifetime of addiction and this is an industry that is out for our youth,” said Pat McKone of the American Lung Association of Minnesota. Many new tobacco products are more appealing to younger customers, with bright packaging, candy flavors and the illusion of a "safer" nicotine delivery source. McKone warns that these products are tricks. The alternative products include forms of snuff, chewing tobacco, e-cigarettes or snus, which are spit-less tobacco pouches that users place under their upper lip. "These products are to enable people to keep using nicotine and nicotine delivery systems until they can get out to smoke," said McKone. The popularity of these products has increased as more states have adopted smoking bans for workplaces and businesses. Minnesota’s ban is already in place and in July, Wisconsin will follow suit. “80% of current adult smokers started between the [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-04-19T22:29:13-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Deadly in pink: new report warns big tobacco has stepped up targeting of women and girls

Source: www.rwjf.org Author: staff The tobacco industry has unleashed its most aggressive marketing campaigns aimed at women and girls in over a decade, according to a report issued today by a coalition of public health organizations. The report warns that these new marketing campaigns are putting the health of women and girls at risk and urges Congress to regulate tobacco marketing by passing legislation granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products. The report, “Deadly in Pink: Big Tobacco Steps Up Its Targeting of Women and Girls,” was issued by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The report and images of the tobacco marketing campaigns can be found at www.tobaccofreekids.org/deadlyinpink In the last two years, the nation’s two largest tobacco companies—Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds—have launched new marketing campaigns that depict cigarette smoking as feminine and fashionable, rather than the harmful and deadly addiction it really is: In October 2008, Philip Morris USA announced a makeover of its Virginia Slims brand into “purse packs”—small, rectangular cigarette packs that contain “superslim” cigarettes. Available in mauve and teal and half the size of regular cigarette packs, the sleek “purse packs” resemble packages of cosmetics and fit easily in small purses. They come in “Superslims Lights” and “Superslims Ultra Lights” versions, continuing the tobacco industry’s history of associating smoking with weight control and of appealing to women’s health concerns with misleading claims [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-02-21T10:42:24-07:00February, 2009|Oral Cancer News|