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CDC to launch new, graphic anti-smoking campaign

One of the ads by the Centers for Disease Control shows Shawn Wright who had a tracheotomy after being diagnosed with head and neck cancer. ATLANTA — Tobacco taxes and smoking bans haven’t budged the U.S. smoking rate in years. Now the government is trying to shock smokers into quitting with a graphic nationwide advertising campaign. The billboards and print, radio and TV ads show people whose smoking resulted in heart surgery, a tracheotomy, lost limbs or paralysis. The $54 million campaign is the largest and starkest anti-smoking push by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its first national advertising effort. The agency is hoping the spots, which begin Monday, will persuade as many as 50,000 Americans to stop smoking. “This is incredibly important. It’s not every day we release something that will save thousands of lives,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a telephone interview. That bold prediction is based on earlier research that found aggressive anti-smoking campaigns using hard-hitting images sometimes led to decreases in smoking. After decades of decline, the U.S. smoking rate has stalled at about 20 percent in recent years. Advocates say it’s important to jolt a weary public that has been listening to government warnings about the dangers of smoking for nearly 50 years. “There is an urgent need for this media campaign,” Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement. The CDC was set to announce the three-month campaign on Thursday. One of the print [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-15T10:42:46-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

HPV a gender-neutral killer

Source: DailyPress.com Socially conservative lawmakers will likely repeal Virginia's requirement that schoolgirls get vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus called HPV that can, and now will, kill many of them. They're repealing it in the name of sexual abstinence, family values and apple pie. In the name of keeping government out of private health-care decisions — and, yes, they say that with a straight face. A body count doesn't bother them. Virtually all cervical cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus, which infects about 80 percent of sexually active adults by age 40. Most don't even know they have it. But, in some women, the virus mutates cells lining the cervix, turning them into cancerous lesions. About 12,000 women each year are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 4,000 of them will die of it, according to the National Cancer Institute. This vaccine would prevent nearly all that cancer. All that death. Yet for moral reasons, not medical, the GOP-controlled House voted last month to eliminate the state's 2007 requirement that girls receive the vaccine before enrolling in sixth grade. (The vaccine is most effective before the onset of sexual activity.) The bill now goes to the GOP-controlled Senate, where it's also expected to pass. Lawmakers in Richmond weren't swayed by appeals to conscience, to logic or to medicine. They didn't care that the law already allows parents to decline the vaccine for their child for any reason whatsoever. They even rejected an amendment by a socially conservative colleague, Del. Chris [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-02-15T10:16:31-07:00February, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

UCSF Professor of Oral Medicine speaks about Oral Cancer

Source: Dr.Bicuspid.com May 17, 2011 -- DrBicuspid.com is pleased to present a new feature series, Leaders in Dentistry, a series of interviews with researchers, practitioners, and opinion leaders who are influencing the practice of dentistry. For the first installment, we spoke with Sol Silverman Jr., DDS, a professor of oral medicine in the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Dentistry and head of one of the oral medicine clinics at UCSF. In addition to seeing patients in the clinic, his research is focused on the diagnosis and treatment of precancerous lesions, as well as effective anti-inflammatory agents for autoimmune diseases that do not have adverse side effects. An advocate for the prevention and early detection of oral cancer and an expert in the treatment of oral cancers, Dr. Silverman has helped develop training programs for dentists to better detect oral cancer and education programs on smoking cessation to reduce the risk of oral cancer. Sol Silverman, DDS, University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry. Image courtesy of the University of California, San Francisco. DrBicuspid: What is the greatest challenge we face today regarding oral cancer? Dr. Silverman: Professional and public education. The No. 1 thing for professionals is to perform examinations and pursue any deviations from normal signs and/or symptoms and to take part in their patients' lives. If they have a patient who smokes, they should try to get them to stop smoking or tell them not to start. On the other hand, it's public education. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-17T18:33:10-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|