Fiore Discusses Tobacco Cessation With Leaders in China

Michael Fiore recently visited China and reported a palpable sense of the country’s economic engine revving, plus nationalistic sprucing-up for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Michael also noted abhorrent smoking rates and other public health concerns.

“The tobacco-control community in China is bumping up against another in-your-face problem,” Fiore said, “the environmental pollution.” He referenced a recent New York Times series that quoted China’s ministry of health naming pollution-caused cancer as the leading cause of death. The newspaper further reported that ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of Chinese deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.

Residents of Linfen, China in a photo by Wu Hong/EPA.

Meanwhile, 70 percent of Chinese men smoke, and five percent of women. Fiore said he saw men, teens and boys “endlessly” smoking. And the gender gap for smoking is closing, signaling grim statistics to come.

“The challenge they are facing is astronomical,” Fiore said. “Half of all physicians smoke. It’s sort of like where the U.S. was in the 1950s.” He said doctors talk to their patients with cigarette packets bulging from shirt pockets.

One step toward addressing these issues is the Chinese clinical practice guideline on treating tobacco dependence. A draft is in place. Fiore said it was gratifying to know how much they value the U.S. Public Health Service’s guideline. “They want to be sure they are in synch with what comes out in the 2008 update.” He said this is further proof of the international impact of that document and its pending changes.

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