Sassari Let’s say that a generation is now mortgaged, and the damage is already done. “On average, 20 to 25 years pass from exposure to the carcinogen to the development of the tumor.” Therefore for heavy smokers born in the Seventies, the health bill has arrived or is arriving. But for their children there is still time to defuse the devastating effects of nicotine. Giuseppe Palmieri, full professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Sassari and head of the Institute of Genetic and Biomedical Research (Irgb) of the Cnr of Sassari, positively evaluates every initiative aimed at discouraging the habit of smoking. But with the distinctions that a scientific look entails: «If we refer to the measures adopted in Turin, therefore the ban on smoking in public places outdoors at a distance of less than five meters from other people, we are naturally talking about passive smoking. On this front there are meta-analyses carried out in China, where tobacco dependence is still high. However, it should be noted that all the data collected concerns exposure to passive smoking within the home environment, and not in open spaces. It has been found that passive smoking in closed spaces accounts for 15 percent of cancers affecting non-smokers. So at the moment we do not have statistics that offer a scientific basis for evaluating the impact of passive smoking outdoors.”
So do you think the bans of the municipality of Turin are exaggerated?
«If I make a scientific evaluation, I have to answer yes. But if I consider the educational approach and the awareness-raising work that these restrictions entail, then I can say that any anti-smoking campaign has its usefulness. And I add: women should be very careful, as they are particularly sensitive to passive smoking with the numerous cases of breast cancer.”
Would you insist further on the communication side?
«I’ll give you an example, which concerns another pathology and another country: melanoma in Australia. The government set up a relentless campaign on sun exposure times, on the use of t-shirts, on creams, on the precautions to be taken on the beach, and after a few years the results arrived: the incidence of melanoma has decreased”.
Instead, what do you think of the laws adopted in Great Britain to create entire smoking-free generations? «Absolutely timely and effective. First of all for their educational value, and also because they are based on a certain biological basis: it has in fact been established that the damage that carcinogens cause in adolescence is greater, because in that phase there is maximum tissue development. Therefore protecting the new generations from tobacco means investing in the future and in health.”
