Rising cancer rate leads to calls for smoking controls (4)

This March, the Beijing Health Bureau and the Office of Tumor Prevention and Treatment of the Beijing Cancer Hospital carried out a project that provided screening of early-stage lung cancer for free for 312 residents aged 55 to 69, and who have been smoking on a daily basis for at least 10 years, and found two early stage cases.

It was a pilot project for a screening program of early-stage cancers, which the city's government is working on under the requirement of the Ministry of Health. According to the ministry, the city will assess at least 10,000 residents for their risks of getting lung cancer, and include at least 2,000 people in the early- stage screening of the disease within a year.

However, Yang Gonghuan said she hopes to see a more fruitful outcome in the city's tobacco control campaign.

"After all, preventing the disease is much less costly than treating it," she said.

Beijing issued a smoking ban in public areas in 1995. In 2008, it issued another government order that stated that entertainment businesses, such as restaurants and Internet cafes, can set aside smoking areas, but should ban smoking in other areas.

"First, it's not a total smoking ban. Second, it's not strictly followed in public places. As a result, the exposure to tobacco hasn't dropped much," Yang Jie said.

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