French Oncologist: Alternative Smoking Reduces Mortalities but Still Harmful

An international expert in medical oncology said the concerned organizations should adopt a more realistic approach to banish smokers from cigarettes. AP
An international expert in medical oncology said the concerned organizations should adopt a more realistic approach to banish smokers from cigarettes. AP
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French Oncologist: Alternative Smoking Reduces Mortalities but Still Harmful

An international expert in medical oncology said the concerned organizations should adopt a more realistic approach to banish smokers from cigarettes. AP
An international expert in medical oncology said the concerned organizations should adopt a more realistic approach to banish smokers from cigarettes. AP

The World Health Organizations (WHO) estimates that there are around one billion smokers worldwide, a number that is not expected to decline in the foreseeable future and will likely remain steady until 2025.

An international expert in medical oncology said the concerned organizations should adopt a more realistic approach to banish smokers from cigarettes using an effective scientific methodology.

Dr. David Khayat, a renowned professor of oncology and medical oncologist in France, told Asharq Al-Awsat that “smoke-free alternatives could deliver a 10-fold reduction in smoking-attributable deaths; however, they are not harm free,” noting that “non-contagious diseases are the leading cause of death in the Middle East, accounting for 72 percent of mortalities.”

He also said “some common practices such as online shopping, regular dining in restaurants and humid weather encourage a lazy lifestyle.”

“The fundamental approach we adopted over the three past decades essentially relied on chemotherapy and hormone interventions. But the scientific research and innovation led us to advanced, more precise alternatives like the targeted therapy and immunotherapy,” he said. Khayat hailed “the discovery of another cancer-fighting treatment that targets the mutating proteins by killing the cells that contain them. These proteins are believed to be the reason behind the ability of endless division that some cancerous cells have.”

The French oncologist said “it’s important to know that cancer survives through mutations and single-cell DNA repair turnovers, which could be fought with targeted therapies,” adding that “other newly-discovered treatment methods, including stereotactic radiotherapy (or radiosurgery) help destroy tumors with high precision.”

The oncology professor said “in 2016, two researchers from Japan and the US discovered why cells sleep. Cancer is so malignant that it secretes somnifera - a sleeping pill - into the white blood cells, which causes them to go dormant. Then, scientists developed an innovative new approach: immunotherapy, a treatment method that contains antibiotic drugs to prevent lymphocytes from becoming inactive. This solution has changed the diagnosis of many cancers, including those found in the lungs, stomach and skin.”

“Nicotine, although addictive, is not the primary cause of smoking-related diseases such as cancer; smoking a cigarette means inhaling the smoke and the resulting burning ash, and this combustion process is the main reason behind many risks and toxins,” said Khayat.

Products that prevent combustion, such as electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco products and oral nicotine pouches, are “a less harmful alternative to conventional smoking.”

“While nicotine, the addictive substance, is still present in different levels in these alternatives, and thus does not make them completely risk-free, it is sufficient to shift smokers' interest away from inhaling cigarette smoke,” he concluded.



Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
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Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a weather official said Thursday, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching.

Senior government climatologist Simon Grainger said the rolling 12-month period between April 2024 and March 2025 was 1.61 degrees Celsius (34.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average -- the hottest since records began more than a century ago.

"This is certainly part of a sustained global pattern," he told AFP.

"We've been seeing temperatures since about April 2023 that were globally much warmer than anything we have seen in the global historical record."

The previous hottest period was in 2019, Grainger said, when temperatures were 1.51 degrees Celsius above average.

"That is a pretty significant difference," Grainger said.

"It's well above what we would expect just from uncertainties due to rounding. The difference is much larger than that."

The record was measured on a rolling 12-month basis -- rather than as a calendar year.

Australia has also recorded its hottest-ever March, Grainger said, with temperatures more than two degrees above what would normally be seen.

"There has basically been sustained warmth through pretty much all of Australia," he said.

"We saw a lot of heatwave conditions, particularly in Western Australia. And we didn't really see many periods of cool weather -- we didn't see many cold fronts come through."

Sickly white coral

From the arid outback to the tropical coast, swaths of Australia have been pummeled by wild weather in recent months.

Unusually warm waters in the Coral Sea stoked a tropical cyclone that pummeled densely populated seaside hamlets on the country's eastern coast in March.

Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods still flowing across outback Queensland.

And a celebrated coral reef off Western Australia has turned a sickly shade of white as hotter seas fuel an unfolding mass bleaching event.

The average sea surface temperature around Australia was the "highest on record" in 2024, according to a recent study by Australian National University.

This record run looked to have continued throughout January and February, said Grainger.

"We haven't seen much cooling in sea surface temperatures."

Moisture collects in the atmosphere as oceans evaporate in hotter temperatures -- eventually leading to more intense downpours and storms.

Australia follows a slew of heat records that have been toppling across the planet.

Six major international datasets confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record.

Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming.

Australia sits on bulging deposits of coal, gas, metals and minerals, with mining and fossil fuels stoking decades of near-unbroken economic growth.

But it is increasingly suffering from more intense heatwaves, bushfires and drought, which scientists have linked to climate change.