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CENTURY
Yale University
School of Medicine
SAC-203
Connecticut
Mental Health Center
34 Park Street
New Haven, CT 06519

Phone:
203-974-7591

Fax:
203-974-7606

E-mail:
infocentury@yale.edu

CENTURY/TTURC Press Release

For more information, contact Dr. Jody Sindelar at 203-785-5287 or Jerold Mande at 203-785-6943

NEW HAVEN, CT. – May 27, 2004 – The 2004 Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking says that the negative effects of smoking are more widespread than previously reported. Tobacco researchers and cancer experts at Yale University said the news in the report highlights the need for new solutions and smoking cessation programs to help those who want to quit.

In Connecticut, for example, state lawmakers have recently passed initiatives to substantially increase the tax on cigarettes and to restrict indoor smoking. Both measures likely will encourage more smokers to quit. The next step is to provide increased support and smoking cessation programs, researchers said.

“Helping smokers to quit will help not only the smokers themselves, but also their family and others, due to the reduced health hazard of environmental smoke,” said Dr. Jody Sindelar, a principal investigator with the Center for Nicotine and Tobacco Use Research at Yale. .

Dr. Sindelar and Jerold Mande, associate director for policy at the Yale Cancer Center, recently launched an initiative to help assess the state's tobacco control policy and prioritize steps for action.

During a recent meeting at Yale, about 30 people, including state tobacco control and cancer control leaders, and Yale researchers, talked about how best to further reduce smoking in Connecticut. For more information about that initiative, please see http://www.quitwithyale.org/policy/action/

The meeting came several days after news that New York City reduced its smoking rate by 11 percent in 2002, the fastest drop in smoking rates ever recorded nationally. This was accomplished in part because of the availability of effective smoking cessation programs.

“To move ahead, we need to identify the next priorities,” said Dr. Sindelar, who is also an associate professor of public health at Yale. “To the work that has already been done, we'd like to add the research efforts of Yale.”

Jerold Mande, also a lecturer in public health at Yale, said the recent meeting would serve as a starting point for an effort to copy New York's success and to bring together state tobacco and cancer control experts to write the tobacco section of the state comprehensive cancer plan. “A tremendous amount of work has already occurred,” Mande said. “Connecticut's tobacco tax and second hand smoke laws rival New York's and are among the best in the nation, we now need to spend a small amount of the state tobacco revenue on programs that have been proven to help smokers quit.”

Mande said that key elements of a statewide smoking cessation program would include the availability of evidence-based counseling and medications, and a media campaign to publicize the availability of such programs.

The list of diseases that the Surgeon General has conclusively linked with smoking has grown even longer. Also, f or every person who dies from a smoking attributable disease, there are 20 more people suffering with at least one serious illness from smoking. An executive summary of the Surgeon General's report, a news release, and a video news release and transcript will be available at www.cdc.gov/tobacco at 12:30 ET.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking has caused 12 million deaths since the first Surgeon General's Report was released in 1964. On average, adults who smoke die 13 to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers. The economic toll exceeds $157 billion dollars each year--$75 billion in direct medical costs and $82 billion in lost productivity.

More than 40 years ago, Luther L. Terry, M.D., Surgeon General, released the landmark report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. The report was among the first to make a clear link between cigarette smoking and cancer and other serious diseases. For more information about the Surgeon General's reports on smoking, please see http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/sgr/index.htm

The Center for Nicotine and Tobacco Use Research at Yale was formed to tackle tobacco use and addiction. Our goal is to investigate and improve the treatment of tobacco dependence, particularly among smokers who find it hard to quit. Our studies are funded in part by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. For more information, please see http://www.quitwithyale.org/

Established in 1974, Yale Cancer Center was one of the first university-based comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute. Today, it is one of a select network of only 38 in the United States, and the only one in Southern New England. For more information, please see http://info.med.yale.edu/ycc/index2.htm