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Prof (Dr) Rama Kant adds: "Tobacco is dangerous in all forms. Presently many states in India report alarming levels of beedi smoking such as 10.6 - 14.2% beedi smoking in Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim; 4.6-9.2% in states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh and Meghalaya. Mizoram has highest beedi smoking rates in India and Punjab has the lowest incidence of beedi smoking." Prof Rama Kant who is also the President-elect of Association of Surgeons of India (ASI), explains: "Beedi usually has less amount of tobacco but high amount of tar, nicotine and other harmful ingredients. There are some ingredients in beedi that greatly increase the risk of developing cancers. Beedi smokers develop lifethreatening tobacco related diseases and disabilities including cancers among which oral cancer, cancer of respiratory tract, etc are very common. The beedi monograph also mentions that such tobacco related cancers constitute 75% of all cancers." Children in particular should be protected from tobacco smoke or smoke coming out of cook stoves and also be brought up in clean, hygiene and healthy environment.
This article is part of a Citizen News Service (CNS) series in lead up to the World Pneumonia Day, 12 November 2011. The project was managed by Abhinav Bharat Foundation and funded by the 2011 Small Grants for World Pneumonia Day Advocacy Program. We are grateful to the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, GAVI Alliance, Global Alliance for Clean Stoves, and Best Shot Foundation for their support. We would like to thank all those who were interviewed as part of this project and who took the time to share their views.
This content is available under the Creative Commons Licence Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) license