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DEL.ICIO.USACS urges Chinese employers to go smoke free
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta-based American Cancer Society has its own Olympics quest.
Dr. Otis Webb Brawley, the chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, was in China this past weekend to launch an effort with more than 70 multi-national and Chinese companies to develop smoke-free worksites.
The launch coincided with the Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
The society and consortium of Chinese partners are unveiling a new “toolkit” to help companies implement 100-percent smoke-free workplaces. More than 70 companies already have committed to become smoke-free at their Beijing facilities, and many also plan to implement those policies nationwide.
This complements a new law that the city of Beijing enacted on May 1 to mandate that public places — from government offices to public institutions — go smoke-free.
“With this collaboration of government, business, and public health [non-government organizations] China is well situated to curb the tobacco epidemic, which threatens to claim one billion lives worldwide this century,” Dr. Brawley said in a statement. “Tobacco increases the risk of at least 15 types of cancer. There is no safe way to smoke, and there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.”
The Smoke-free Worksite Initiative is part of the American Cancer Society’s new Global Smokefree Partnership — a venture with a consortium of partners — to reduce tobacco use internationally, thereby helping prevent a number of cancers around the world.
The venture also exemplifies the international reach of the American Cancer Society, founded in 1913. It currently has offices in 3,400 communities with nearly three million volunteers across the United States and the world.
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Comments
By Barney Breet
August 14, 2008 12:54 PM | Link to this
Here we go, the usual anti-smoking propaganda, over and over again, ad nauseum! Fancy calling smoking an epidemic! It is not an infectious viral disease you know! Unadulterated lies, fake statistics, ridiculous exaggerations and hyperbole. According to the anti-smoking lobby, smoking is virtually responsible for every ailment known to mankind! What cloud cuckoo land do they live in? As their propaganda gets more extreme, it will be the nemisis of their over-zealous fanatical campaign! Smoking Bans have come and gone in the past, this one will go the same way! Freedom2Choose
By Barney Breet
August 14, 2008 12:57 PM | Link to this
Here we go, the usual anti-smoking propaganda, over and over again, ad nauseum! Fancy calling smoking an epidemic! It is not an infectious viral disease you know! Unadulterated lies, fake statistics, ridiculous exaggerations and hyperbole. According to the anti-smoking lobby, smoking is virtually responsible for every ailment known to mankind! What cloud cuckoo land do they live in? As their propaganda gets more extreme, it will be the nemisis of their over-zealous fanatical campaign! Smoking Bans have come and gone in the past, this one will go the same way! Freedom2Choose
By Dave Atherton
August 14, 2008 3:22 PM | Link to this
“Tobacco increases the risk of at least 15 types of cancer. There is no safe way to smoke, and there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.”
There seems to be no shortage of ACS BS too. It is quite wrong to cite SHS as dangerous, can anyone produce a death certificate stating that SHS was the cause of someone’s death?
Yes, there are carcinogens in cigarettes, like for example benezene. Alas you have to be surrounded by 13,300 smokers to approach danger levels.
Alas benzene constitutes 2% of a gallon of gas and Dr. Otis Webb Brawley’s car is putting 10,000 more carcinogens per square foot than one cigarette smoker. Come on Dr Brawley think of the kids. I don’t want to sound personal but Dr Brawley looks like he could do with the exercise. After all obesity will shorten your life, albeit marginally, than active smoking.
By Pete
August 14, 2008 5:05 PM | Link to this
Wow, I wasn’t aware that tobacco companies still employed propagandists to attack every anti-tobacco article that they can find. Of course according to these people smoking is perfectly healthy, and non-smokers should just enjoy exposure to secondhand smoke. Anyone with much intelligence or commons sense will not be fooled by the previous posters. And one of them even had the nerve to post the same big tobacco propaganda twice!
By Karyn
August 14, 2008 9:24 PM | Link to this
I think the American Cancer Society should concentrate its efforts on finding a cure for cancer.
The money they are spending on lobbying should go into research.
By Star Employee
August 22, 2008 10:25 PM | Link to this
I think the AMERICAN cancer society should concentrate its efforts in America. We haven’t ended the tobacco problem here in America, much less in its own back yard—Georgia.
We already have too many agencies on the “find a cure for cancer” bandwagon. It is an ego race like going to the moon or finding a new land. Go for the prevention of what causes it and you’ll have something…