Stanton Glantz is director of the University of California's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education and an author of the new study. He says it shows that tuberculosis cannot be controlled unless tobacco use is controlled.
STANTON GLANTZ: "It increases the number of people who will get tuberculosis by about seven percent. It increases the number of people projected to die from tuberculosis between now and twenty-fifty by about twenty-six percent."
The study is described as the first to identify a direct link between tobacco use and rates of TB infection and death. Professor Glantz says the results should guide those creating health policies and TB control efforts.
STANTON GLANTZ: "If you want to control the infectious disease of tuberculosis, you have to control the tobacco industry and the tobacco industry's efforts to increase tobacco use, particularly in developing countries where tuberculosis is a big problem."
The study predicts that the situation will only get worse if tobacco companies continue to sell more of their products in those countries. It says strong efforts to control tobacco would not only reduce deaths from smoking-related diseases like emphysema, heart disease and lung cancer. They could also prevent millions of deaths from tuberculosis.
The study appeared in BMJ, the British Medical Journal.
And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. For more news about efforts to control tobacco, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Bob Doughty.
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2013-11-25
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