Women smokers, long thought to be more immune to tobacco-related disease than men, faced more risks to life and health than their male counterparts.
This, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report published by The Fiji Times on April 3, 1992.
At the rates at the time, the report stated, well over a million women would be dying every year from lung cancer and other diseases related to smoking by the year 2020 — more than double the toll.
“Until recently, mortality rates from smoking-related diseases were low among women, leading to the assumption that they might be more resistant than men to the damage caused by tobacco,” an official summary of the report said.
“Data now make it clear that women are as vulnerable as men and face additional risks as well,” it declared.
The report, the first detailed worldwide survey of women and smoking, said death rates in women from lung cancer were rising virtually throughout the industrialised world.
It suggested business interests and governments fearing loss of profits or tax revenues were either promoting the use of tobacco or failing to combat it.
“The number of women smokers grows daily, not only because of the world’s fast-growing populations but because smoking is being fostered and encouraged worldwide for commercial gain.”
Despite incontrovertible evidence on the toll of death and disease, it added many governments were ambivalent when faced with choices involving excise and tax revenue, health and welfare spending, and political expediency.
The report, issued as a book called Women and Tobacco, was compiled by Dr Claire Chollat-Traquet, a scientific specialist with the United Nations agency’s tobacco or health program in Geneva.
In many industrialised countries, her research found smoking prevalence rates among men and women were beginning to converge.
“While women and men in some countries may be quitting at the same rate, it is often the case that more young women than men are starting to smoke.
“If this trend continues female smokers will outnumber male smokers in the near future.”
Among the additional risks to women smokers infections of the reproductive tract and fertility disorders, Chollat-Traquet found, while menstrual disorders were more common and the menopause normally came two to three years earlier than among non-smokers.
Nicotine, the report said, reduced blood circulation and the intake of oxygen with adverse effects on the skin, hair and eyes.
Contrary to the images promoted in cigarette advertising, smoking caused premature wrinkles, bad breath, stained teeth and fingernails, gum disease, dental problems, a hoarse voice and a chronic cough, the WHO declared.
The report found smoking was increasing at a rate of 2.1 per cent a year in developing countries, with surveys based on incomplete data suggesting between five and 10 per cent of women were smokers.
The study found that women in general found it more difficult to give up than men, partly because they feared putting on weight — a common side-effect of stopping smoking.
