|
Chennai, Feb 4 2008 (IANS)
By Papri Sri Raman
A. Sharfudeen goes from college to college, talking to hundreds of youths, telling them how tobacco use can lead to cancer. But he cannot speak - at least not without the help of a machine. A 30-year-old smoking habit took its toll and Sharfudeen's larynx, the voice box in the human body, was destroyed by the disease. Today he communicates with the help of an artificial electro-larynx.
"Don't smoke and don't use any tobacco products," he tells students at the colleges he visits."It will spoil your health and if your health goes, you will not be able to take care of your family and they will certainly suffer." Sharfudeen, 64, is the chosen campaigner in the fight against cancer by the Tobacco Cessation Clinic run by cancer expert Vidubala at the Adyar Cancer Institute in Chennai. His message rang clear on Feb 4, observed as World Cancer Day. Sharfudeen also doubles as the secretary of the Laryngectomee Welfare Association of Tamil Nadu, a body that provides peer support to about 3,000 cancer patients across the state. His is a story that is repeated every day in the country; Sharfudeen began smoking in college and smoked 10-15 cigarettes a day till cancer struck in 1998.
Since then he has spent hundreds of thousands of rupees on therapy, medicines and an operation to remove his larynx. Coming from a middle class background, it was with the subsidised medi-care he received at the Cancer Institute that he could manage his medical expenses."Better to avoid such habits," he tells everyone pragmatically. India at any given point of time is home to nearly 2.5 million cancer patients. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that nearly 800,000 Indians are affected with this disease every year and around 400,000 succumb to it annually. But with the debate on whether film stars should smoke on screen still raging and the mandatory pictorial warnings law for all tobacco products postponed for the fifth time, Sharfudeen's campaign does not look like a cakewalk.
Manufacturing companies argue that the pictorial depictions in the warning are very repulsive and have appealed to the court for modifications to make the pictures "more acceptable" to the public. The warning pictures are to occupy 50 percent of the packaging area with an aim to create awareness about the hazards of tobacco use. The central health ministry has also been under severe pressure from Andhra Pradesh and other states producing beedis - leaf-rolled cigarettes - to put off pictorial warnings. A 1999 government data says that the beedi-industry employs more than 4.4 million people. "I am one of the 800,000 who got cancer in the year 1998," Sharfudeen wrote in a letter to central minister S. Jaipal Reddy, chairman of the ministerial committee looking into the implementation of law, urging the government to implement the picture warnings on tobacco products. The ministry has sought four months time for implementation of the law. The case, after several postponements, is now scheduled to be reviewed by the Shimla High Court in March.
"In the last one year, the implementation of pictorial warnings has been delayed five times," said P.C. Gupta, director, Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health. "The primary objective of pictorial warnings is to enable the uninitiated and the illiterate to make an informed choice about consuming a tobacco product." In India, almost 50 percent of all cancer in men is caused by heavy tobacco chewing and smoking, with the beedi containing more toxic chemicals than the regular cigarette. Smokers are also likely to develop cancer of the mouth, pharynx, oesophagus (gullet), pancreas and urinary bladder, say the experts. Meanwhile, organisations like the Tobacco Cessation Clinic, Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health, Advocacy Forum for Tobacco Control and others keep up their fight against tobacco and cancer through people like Sharfudeen.
"Vijay, Surya do not smoke on screen, Rajni (Rajnikanth) sir has given up smoking on screen. So can you," he tells the students about well known southern actors.
"But is anyone listening? I often wonder," he confides. Content navigation Previous: Mahesh Yogi steps down as head of TM empire
|
News 
Not logged