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** 15 February 2021
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** UK
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** CT scan catches 70% of lung cancers at early stage, NHS study finds (#1)
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** UK-US Brexit trade deal ‘could fill supermarkets with cancer-risk bacon’ (#2)
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** BBC drama The Serpent saw 220 cigarettes smoked in eight episodes — that’s a cigarette every two minutes (#3)
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** UK
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** Thousands of lives could be saved if people at risk of developing lung cancer were screened to diagnose it before it becomes incurable, a major NHS study has found. According to the study, giving smokers and ex-smokers a CT scan uncovers cancerous lung tumours when they are at an early enough stage so they can still be removed, rather than continuing to grow unnoticed.

Experts are calling on the government moves to bring in routine CT scanning of smokers and ex-smokers in order to cut the huge death toll from lung cancer. About 48,000 people a year are diagnosed with the disease in the UK and 35,100 die from it – 96 a day. Lung cancer is a particularly brutal form of cancer because it is hard to detect and three out of four cases are diagnosed at stage three or four, when it is already too late to give the person potentially life-saving treatment.

However, the Summit study ([link removed]) , being run by specialists in the disease at University College London Hospital NHS trust, offers real hope that lung cancer can become a condition that is detected early. CT scanning meant that 70% of the growths detected in people’s lungs were identified when the disease was at stage one or two – a huge increase in the usual rate of early diagnosis.

“Now that CT screening for lung cancer has been shown to work, we very much hope that a lung cancer screening programme will be introduced in England”, said Dr Robert Rintoul, the chair of the clinical advisory group of the UK Lung Cancer Coalition, a group of leading experts in the disease and patient charities.

“Lung cancer is the UK’s biggest cancer killer and early detection offers the best chance of curative treatment and saving more lives.” Screening could lead to a 25% fall in the number of men dying of lung cancer and 30-40% fewer deaths among women, he added.

Source: The Guardian, 14 February 2021

Editorial note: Over 80% of lung cancer cases in the UK are caused by tobacco smoking, with current smokers 15 times more likely to die from lung cancer than life-long non-smokers. Evidence shows ([link removed]) that just over a third of lung cancer patients are still smokers at time of diagnosis, and those who stopped smoking and survived their treatment lived significantly longer than those who continued to smoke. However, GPs are comparatively less likely to intervene and offer stop-smoking support to cancer patients, than they are to people diagnosed with coronary heart disease, resulting in lower quit rates for cancer patients.
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** British stores could be flooded with “dangerous” bacon and ham from the US, marketed under misleading labels, as the result of a transatlantic trade deal, says the author of a new book based on a decade of investigation into the food industry.

The meat has been cured with nitrites extracted from vegetables, a practice not permitted by the European Commission because of evidence that it increases the risk of bowel cancer. But it is allowed in the US, where the product is often labelled as “all natural”. The powerful US meat industry is likely to insist that the export of nitrite-cured meat is a condition of a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal, which the UK government is under intense pressure to deliver.

“The American processed-meat industry acts just like big tobacco,” Guillaume Coudray, author of ‘Who Poisoned Your Bacon Sandwich?’ told the Observer. “It obscures the truth about nitro-meats and clouds the facts for its own commercial benefit – and they have been at it for decades. They have done this despite clear and overwhelming evidence that nitro-meats cause bowel cancer.”

Coudray, whose book is published this week, said: “The American meat industry uses celery juice nitrites to cure bacon and ham. The Americans overtly mislead their consumers by claiming their products are ‘nitrite-free’ or ‘all natural’, whereas such claims have been banned in Europe.”

Source: The Guardian, 14 February 2021
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Hit BBC drama The Serpent saw 220 cigarettes smoked in eight episodes, a rate of one almost every two minutes.

Star Jenna Coleman, 34, who plays serial killer Charles Sobhraj’s girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc, smokes the most with 47 cigarettes throughout the show. Chain-smoking Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle) manages to get through 35.

Viewer Rob Atkinson said: “The amount of stress smoking is making me want to smoke and I don’t even smoke.”

Tobacco control charities criticised the show, with Deborah Arnott, from Action on Smoking and Health, saying: “There’s a proven causal link between watching people smoke on screen and taking up smoking.

“Whether the smokers are heroes or villains doesn’t make a difference. Exposure to images of people smoking makes it harder to quit.”

Source: The Sun, 14 February 2021
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For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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