11/06/2003

Agency steps up drive to highlight dangers of smoking

The drive to encourage smokers to beat their habit gathered momentum today as the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland launched the latest phase of the ‘Every cigarette is doing you damage’ campaign.

Ninety per cent of all lung cancers in Northern Ireland are related to smoking and this new campaign shows in graphic detail how breathing in tobacco smoke can cause lung cancer to develop.

Speaking at the launch, Dr Brian Gaffney, Chief Executive of the Health Promotion Agency said: “This latest phase of the 'Every cigarette is doing you damage’ campaign explains how smoking enables lung cancer to start developing. We hope it will make smokers think seriously about the consequences of smoking and that it will motivate them to stop."

The latest campaign includes a television advertisement which shows how smoking attacks a vital gene which protects lung cells from cancer and explains that one damaged cell is all it takes to start lung cancer growing. Nine out of every ten lung cancer cases here are directly attributed to smoking and it is important that smokers are made aware of this fact.

Earlier phases of this campaign, which highlighted the link between smoking and stroke and smoking and heart disease, have been very effective. Evaluations of these phases have indicated an increase in the number of smokers attempting to quit. Thousands of smokers have also sought help to stop smoking by calling the Smokers’ Helpline.

Dr Ruth Eakin, Consultant Oncologist at Belfast City Hospital, added her support to the campaign saying it was a "very important step" towards making smokers aware of the strong association between smoking and lung cancer.

(MB)

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