WHO warning: E-cigarettes won’t help in reducing cancer

admin — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 09:38:53 +0000

No evidence to justify their claim according to World Health Organization (WHO)

Electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products are not helping fight cancer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says, urging smokers and governments not to trust claims from cigarette firms about their latest products.

The seventh “WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic” said blocking the industry’s interference was critical to cutting the harm from tobacco use.

“The tobacco industry has a long history of systemic, aggressive, sustained and well-resourced opposition to tobacco control measures,” the report said.

“While some strategies are public and others more covert, all have the goal of weakening tobacco control.”

The report said tobacco giant Philip Morris International was trying to position itself as a responsible public health partner via its “Unsmoke” campaign, which encourages people to “change to a better alternative”.

The WHO said the campaign aimed to ensure tobacco remained socially acceptable, while confusing consumers with terms such as “smoke-free products”, which may refer to products with toxic emissions and unknown short-term and long-term health effects.

Philip Morris spokesman Ryan Sparrow said the WHO’s message made it harder to provide safer options for people who cannot quit smoking.

“There is no question that the best choice for smokers is to quit cigarettes and nicotine altogether. The reality is many people do not. We cannot turn our backs on them,” he said. “Organisations like the World Health Organisation need to stop talking at smokers and start listening.”

The WHO report said the industry hoped to win respectability through manipulative messages such as claiming their products were part of a “harm reduction” strategy, even though cigarettes still account for 97 per cent of the global tobacco market.

Vinayak Prasad, program manager of WHO’s tobacco control unit, said development of new products was solely intended to expand the markets of tobacco firms.

“There is no difference between cigarettes and heated tobacco products except that in terms of exposure: the exposure is less and the smoke is not visible,” he said.

Electronic cigarettes, containing nicotine but not tobacco, were promoted as a way to quit smoking. But there was no evidence to justify the claim, and evidence from the United States showed they had increased the prevalence of young people smoking, he said.

“So it’s also a gateway for young people,” Prasad said.

“The answer is it needs to be regulated. WHO has clear guidelines – to get electronic cigarettes regulated. And if you are banning it, fine, but if you aren’t banning it don’t let it (go) free in the market, because the young people are taking it up.”

Reference: WHO, 7news

Immunotherapy for cancer-simply explained

admin — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 08:15:22 +0000

“Immunotherapy for cancer” is a new treatment modality that aims to empower patient’s own immune system to fight against cancer.

Despite it initially looks, CANCER is actually a genetic disorder. There are several consecutive series of mutations which must happen in advance of a cancer cell develops.

Typically this requires 6 – 10 mutations in the cells which causes losing cancer regulation checkpoints in the process. Usually the process needs a long time, which should explain why most cancers appear in old ages and even after a long while from quitting the smoking or drinking alcohol.

Our immune system is usually capable of spotting a mutated cell and destroying it before it grows and mutates even further.

In other words, some mutations are simply too complicated for our immune system to be discovered and destroyed. The Immune system then needs an extra “booster”, to enhance their radar for spotting cancer cells. This are where immunotherapy drugs (like Nivolumab, Ipilimumab, Blincyto, etc.) come to the picture and work.

At the moment this is quite a new therapy method and grows increasingly fast (Nobel prize 2018 was about the same!). We as an experienced player in international level within oncology sector are very much interested to enhance permeability of these expensive molecules into cancer cells. This can save a lot by using lower dosage of immunotherapy medicines for having the same clinical outcome.

It can also potentially help to prevent cancer in high risk patient groups. Utilizing electricity and electroporation is something that might be considered as a route for such and we are welcoming international research centers to work hand in hand against cancer.

Having that said, we hope high, because with all these methods we might not be that far from curing cancer.

immunotherapy drugs for lung cancer – Senator Medical AB

WHO warning: E-cigarettes won’t help in reducing cancer

No evidence to justify their claim according to World Health Organization (WHO)

Immunotherapy for cancer-simply explained