A November 1, 2006 piece by Anita Srikameswaran notes ACSH's position on the potential use of smokeless tobacco as a harm reduction method:
According to the American Council on Science and Health, encouraging cigarette smokers to switch to chew, particularly products that contain low levels of cancer-causing nitrosamines, could substantially reduce health costs and the incidence of both lung and heart disease.
Harm Reduction
An article on flu in the November issue of Fitness quoted ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross on one highly useful flu-fighting step:
DON'T SMOKE. "People who light up are much more susceptible to the flu," explains Gilbert Ross, M.D., executive and medical director of the American Council on Science and Health in New York City. That's because smoking impedes the body's ability to fight off infection.
This report provides a description of traditional and modern smokeless tobacco products. It reviews the epidemiologic evidence for low health risks associated with smokeless use, both in absolute terms and in comparison to the much higher risks of smoking. The report also describes evidence that smokeless tobacco has served as an effective substitute for cigarettes among Swedish men, who consequently have among the lowest smoking-related mortality rates in the developed world.
New York, NY -- October, 2006. Smokeless tobacco use is a much-ignored means of reducing the overwhelming health risks of smoking. In a new publication, Helping Smokers Quit: A Role for Smokeless Tobacco?, physicians and scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) point out that the public health establishment has misled smokers about the benefits and risks of substituting smokeless tobacco for cigarettes.
A September 26, 2006 article by Lauren Foster notes that judges have ruled claims that "light" cigarettes are healthier to be false but that the idea of using smokeless tobacco as a safer alternative for those who can't quit nicotine is catching on, citing researcher Brad Rodu and ACSH's Jeff Stier:
Mr. Rodu and others point to Sweden, where snus is more widely used by men than cigarettes and where men have the lowest rate of lung cancer in Europe. One study showed that the smoking rate among Swedish men fell from 19% in 1996 to 9% in 2004. By contrast, women are much less likely to use snus and their rate of tobacco-related deaths is similar to that in other European countries.
An August 8, 2006 Boston Herald article noted a piece by ACSH's Todd Seavey chastising Melanie Griffith for letting her teenage daughter smoke:
Griffith, who married Don Johnson, the girl's father, at age nineteen (the first time), staked a place in Tinseltown with her barely legal portrayals of porn stars and prostitutes. But the American Council of Science and Health argues that by condoning underage smoking -- the legal age being eighteen -- the 48-year-old actress has taken her reckless reputation too far!
A July 13, 2006 column (reprinted on July 17) by Steve Chapman on the use of smokeless tobacco instead of cigarettes as a method of harm reduction concludes with a quote from ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross:
Beginning in the 1950s, people suffering from smoking-related diseases started suing cigarette companies.
That made sense. Those companies were found to be suppressing evidence cigarettes cause any number of health issues and trial lawyers were happy to take a cut for helping patients get compensation.
New York, NY -- July 2006. Foods are not cigarettes and should not be treated like them in the courts, according to a new publication by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).
A May 7, 2006 article on the website of the Pakistan News Service quotes ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross countering fears about smokers gaining weight when they quit:
Smokers who want to quit should not be deterred by this, said Dr. Gilbert L. Ross, medical director of the American Council on Science and Health in New York.
"The negative impact on lungs and lung function of weight gain by smokers who quit is way, way overshadowed by the negative impact of smoking on lung function as well as every other part of the body," Ross said.
A new report from Norway, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, presents stark new data on the lethal effects of cigarettes. The Norwegian scientists accumulated smoking and mortality data from almost 50,000 people over the course of twenty-five years -- the largest study ever to include women, who comprised half of the study subjects. The subjects were in the forty- to seventy-year age range.
When anti-smoking Sen. Ortolan Finistirre (presumably D-VT) challenges tobacco industry public relations "hero" Nick Naylor, in the film Thank You for Smoking, about the need for a skull and crossbones warning on cigarette boxes, Naylor snipes back that if the senator's goal were really to protect the public health, he'd be trying to put the same warning on artery-clogging cheddar cheese. "The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese!" shouts the indignant, self-righteous senator. It was one of many humorous and memorable lines in this enjoyable film version of the Christopher Buckley novel by the same name. And it's not so different from the public health community's broad anti-industry zealotry, which can obscure real public health problems.