[C-U Smokefree] New JAMA/CDC Study

[Theotskl at aol.com]

Hi All--

FYI.

THT

Statement of Matthew L. Myers

President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

New JAMA/CDC Study Finds Tobacco Use Remains No. 1 Cause of Preventable Death

But U.S. Is Not Doing Enough to Fight It



WASHINGTON, DC (March 9, 2004) - Tobacco use remains the leading
preventable cause of death in the United States, with smoking and exposure
to secondhand smoke accounting for 435,000 deaths in 2000, according to a
study in the March 10 issue of The Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA).  The study, conducted by researchers at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), finds that annual tobacco-caused
deaths have increased since 1990 and concludes, "The most disappointing
finding may be the slow progress in reducing tobacco-related mortality."



While this study also identifies poor diet and physical inactivity as
growing problems that must be addressed, it clearly shows that we must step
up efforts to reduce tobacco use and its devastating consequences.  The
tobacco epidemic is truly unique both in the lethality of the product that
causes it and the extensive scientific evidence to support the solutions we
have developed. We know what works to prevent and reduce tobacco use, but
elected officials have failed to implement these solutions with a level of
commitment and resources that even remotely approach the scope of the
problem.  The current Administration has failed to provide national
leadership in the fight against tobacco use, and most states have
squandered the unprecedented opportunity presented by the 1998 state
tobacco settlement to fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs that
are proven to reduce smoking and save lives.



The need for greater leadership in fighting tobacco use starts in our
nation's Capital.  It is mind-boggling that cigarettes and other tobacco
products remain virtually unregulated to protect consumers' health and
safety because Congress and the Administration have failed to grant the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration meaningful authority to regulate them.



Despite a recent recommendation by its own expert scientific advisory
committee to implement a National Action Plan to help smokers quit, the
Administration has failed to implement most elements of this plan or to
devote new resources to doing so.  The plan calls for increasing the
federal cigarette tax by $2 per pack and using at least half the revenue
for smoking cessation initiatives, including a national telephone quitline
through which smokers could obtain cessation medication and counseling, a
national media campaign to encourage cessation, coverage for
smoking-cessation therapies under federally funded health care programs
like Medicaid and Medicare, and enhanced research and health provider
training.  The Administration has rejected the cigarette tax increase and
announced support only for the quitline proposal without identifying
funding for it.  As the JAMA study emphasizes, we will not significantly
reduce tobacco's toll without a national cessation campaign to accelerate
the very slow declines in adult smoking rates.



States and communities have done more, but not nearly enough.  A handful of
states have shown that we can dramatically reduce smoking among both youth
and adults by implementing comprehensive, science-based measures, including
tobacco prevention and cessation programs, tobacco tax increases that
discourage consumption, and smoke-free workplaces and public places that
protect everyone from secondhand smoke.  But these solutions have been
applied unevenly and sporadically.  It is public health malpractice that
only four states currently fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs
at even the minimum levels recommended by the CDC.  Despite collecting
record amounts of revenue from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes,
states have cut funding for their tobacco prevention programs by more than
a quarter over the past two years.  This failure to use the tobacco
settlement for its intended purpose is truly tragic because states that
have implemented well-funded tobacco prevention programs have not only
reduced smoking, but saved lives and saved money by reducing smoking-caused
health care costs.



Few areas of public health can match tobacco control in having identified
scientifically proven strategies that work to save lives and improve
health.  Our solutions - comprehensive prevention and cessation programs,
tobacco tax increases, smoke-free policies and regulation of tobacco
products - are the equivalent of a vaccine that works to protect our
children from tobacco addiction, disease and death.  It is no more
acceptable that we fail to provide this vaccine to everyone in our country
than it would be to fail to provide them with a proven vaccine for a deadly
infectious disease.  Unfortunately, too many politicians would prefer to
pretend that the tobacco problem has been solved than implement real
solutions.  As the JAMA study so clearly demonstrates, the tobacco problem
is far from solved.  And it won't be unless elected leaders finally begin
to close the growing chasm between what we know works to reduce tobacco use
and what we are actually doing to fight it.