Poignant story of a tobacco victim

All because of tobacco use, Navin Khanna of Delhi suffers from poor quality of life today. 

Two years ago, he was diagnosed with oral cancer, changing his and his family's life forever.

More well-known as India's crow man, Navin holds a Limca record for his friendship with wild crows. 


Also a mining engineer and writer, he confesses to paying scant regard to warning messages given on gutkha packets.

His wife Sunila Khanna says, "People would stare at his disfigured face and enquire how it happened. Their concern and sympathy would vanish when they hear it was caused due to tobacco use." 

In this poignant narrative, Naveen shares his battle with oral cancer and how tobacco use brought about a down-turn to his otherwise healthy and hearty life ...

Courtesy: IBN Live

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Gutkha use may cause sexual life impairment

Much has been said about the fact that smokeless-tobacco induces cancers, but it is a lesser known fact that use of these products may lead to impaired reproductive health and sexual dysfunction among males and females.

A path-breaking study conducted by the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh has found that constituents of gutkha can alter the production of sex hormones such as testosterone in males and oestrogen in females. 

The study conducted in animals also found that gutkha use affects the normal function of a key family of enzymes, known as CYP-450 that is responsible for the production of these hormones. The hormone testosterone, produced by the testicles, is responsible for proper development of male sexual characteristics and sexual function.

Times of India, 3 June 2012

Veekshanam, 31 May 2012

Kerala Bhooshanam, 31 May 2012

Siraj, 31 May 2012

Metro Vaartha, 31 May 2012

Newage, 31 May 2012

Varthamanam, 31 May 2012

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World No Tobacco Day: Fighting Industry Influence

In 2005, a significant film that clearly brings out the spin and lobbying tactics of tobacco industry opened to a limited release in just five theatres in USA.

The film, 'Thank you For Smoking,' through its protagonist, Nick Naylor (enacted by Aaron Eckhart) shows the arm-twisting ways of the mighty tobacco industry.

As New York Times review has put it, it portrays the consistent hunt of a Washington lobbyist for "new and inventive ways to rebrand cancer sticks for public consumption."


The film is based on a satirical novel of Christopher Buckley by the same name, which has received as a harsher critic of tobacco lobbyists.


The powerful influence and interference of tobacco industry yet again gets centre-stage as we observe the 25th year of World No Tobacco Day - a call made by the World Heath Organisation in 1987 to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes.


The theme this year is “tobacco industry interference” and focuses on the need to expose and counter the tobacco industry's brazen and increasingly aggressive attempts to undermine the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) because of the serious danger they pose to public health.


The global tobacco epidemic kills nearly 6 million people each year, of which more than 600,000 are people exposed to second-hand smoke.

Various programmes and activities are being organised globally today.


In Kerala, the Hon’ble Health Minister Shri.V.S.Sivakumar, who is also the Chairman of Tobacco Free Kerala coalition, inaugurated a state-wide massive programme at Trivandrum. Shri.K.Muraleedharan, MLA presided over the inaugural function.


Protest rallies against public smoking, and start of tobacco cessation counselling services and clinics in nearly 5,000 sub-centres spread across all 14 districts of the state form a part of the day’s agenda.


Experts, researchers, members of the medical fraternity, civil society and students have come together to publicly outcry the domineering methods of the tobacco industry in the interest of public health.


Also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdp8IZWWAT0

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