|
Save our children from Tobacco!
An SOS to the Government and the Bollywood
We are happy that our health minister has a healthy
outlook regarding tobacco therefore could embark on a healthy mission to safeguard
our nation’s health. His move can be termed unhealthy for 
tobacco industry and few Bollywood health freaks. Perhaps, people who are passing
vitriolic remark against this law are unaware of the implications of tobacco
use to our country. Apart from killing 8 lakh Indians every year, tobacco alone
is responsible for 1.5 lakh cancers, 4.2 million heart diseases, 3.7 million
lung diseases in our countrymen every year. In India, 2,200 persons die every
day from tobacco-related diseases. The cost of treating this ailing humanity,
as estimated by ICMR in 1999, was 277.61 billion rupees. Unfortunately, tobacco
use continues to grow at the rate of about 5-7 percent every year.
The wicked tobacco industry has not spared our innocent
children too. Each day 55,000 children in India start using tobacco and about
5 million children under the age of fifteen are addicted to tobacco. Gutka,
the Indian avatar of tobacco, is specifically aimed at our young generation.
It is projected as a harmless mouth freshener and therefore consumed in larger
amount and kept in the mouth for a longer time by the ignorant children. A survey
of school children in a coastal village of Kerala showed a 29 % prevalence of
tobacco chewing and another survey in Mizoram showed that incidence of 56.5%.
The age for initiation for gutka consumption has been reported between 8 – 14
years in India. A survey done by the Indian Dental Association found that 10%-40%
of school students and 70% of students in colleges in Mumbai chew gutka and
paan masala. I did a survey of 986 school children in a rural part of Madhya
Pradesh and found precursor of mouth cancers in 56 children. Therefore, the
evidence of early onset of the tobacco habit and reports of increases in oral
precursors of cancers among children raise serious concerns of an impending
oral cancer epidemic in our country. The age incidence of oral cancer in India
is going down and is significantly lower than reported in the rest of the world.
The tobacco industry is harming our children in more
than one way. It is well known that beedi industry uses children as bonded labors
and makes money by keeping them in most in-human working conditions. What if
they were our children! The recent ban on smoking may not have a great impact
on this menace but will prompt the young vulnerable people to think several
times before being addicted to this killer habit. WHO youth researchers reviewed
more than 440 Bollywood films between 1991 to 2002 and found that tobacco portrayal
was prevalent in nearly 3 out of four movies. It said in earlier films only
the villains smoked, but increasingly most Bollywood films also showed heroes
smoking. The famous superstar Shahrukh Khan has been showed to smoke on screen
109 times in last 12 years and legendary south Indian actor Rajnikant has smoked
103 times! Now that Shahrukh Khan is the MTV youth icon, he should exploit his
position to educate the youth. Smoking cigarettes forms about only one fifth
of India's tobacco market , rest smoke beedis. The multi-national tobacco companies
have launched an aggressive campaign to capture and convert India's 250 million
tobacco users to cigarette smokers, particularly the young.
India has 184 million tobacco consumers (17% of world tobacco
users) of which 112 million smoke and 96 million chew tobacco. Ironically, tobacco
chewing is socially acceptable form of tobacco. Several movies of Amitabh and
Govinda have given tremendous popularity to this killer habit. This curiosity
that movie stars create amongst children may eventually make them addicts. It
gives the youngsters a false impression as if the stars chewed tobacco in real
life too. It legitimizes this evil habit. I have deepest regards for people
in Bollywood. I would urge them to help fight this preventable menace.
First time we have a health minister who has shown the courage
to resist the tobacco mafia. I hope the doctor in him remains alive. There are
several ways his powerful office can save our children from this misery. He
will go down in the history of India as a “sensible” minister who worked for
people.
Article by Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi
You can contact him at
Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi
Cancer Surgeon
Tata Memorial Hospital
Mumbai
E-mail : Contact
Now
Tel- 91-22-24177189
Fax- 91-22-24146937
|
