Report of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health / chairman, David Poswillo.

  • Great Britain. Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health
Date:
[1998]
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Report of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health / chairman, David Poswillo. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/152 page 9
    SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS THE SCALE OF THE SMOKING PROBLEM (PART ONE) Conclusions: Smoking is a major cause of illness and death from chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular disease, and cancers of the lung and other sites. Smoking is the most important cause of premature death in developed countries. It accounts for one fifth of deaths in the UK: some 120,000 deaths a year. The avoidance of smoking would eliminate one third of the cancer deaths in Britain and one sixth of the deaths from other causes. Smoking prevalence in young people rose between 1988 and 1997 and the downward trend in adult smoking, noted in the UK since 1972, was reversed in 1996. A person who smokes cigarettes regularly more than doubles his or her risk of dying before the age of 65. Addiction to nicotine sustains cigarette smoking and is responsible for the remarkable intractabil- ity of smoking behaviour. Smoking in pregnancy causes adverse outcomes, notably an increased risk of miscarriage, reduced birth weight and perinatal death. If parents continue to smoke after pregnancy there is an increased rate of sudden infant death syndrome. Cigarette smoking is an important contributor to health inequalities, being much more common amongst the disadvantaged than the affluent members of society. Recommendations: The enormous damage to health and life arising from smoking should no longer be accepted; the Government should take effective action to limit this preventable epidemic. The Government should require of the tobacco industry: a. reasonable standards in the assessment of evidence relating to the health effects of the product it sells, b. acceptance that smoking is a major cause of premature death, and
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