you're watching r t and here's a recap of our top stories this hour e.u. finance ministers meet in brussels to consider boosting the bailout plan for struggling economies but your skeptics say the single currency is broken beyond repair several euro zone members now. and tunisia forms a new national unity coalition government days after widespread protests toppled the previous president who is now. the new regime will be hoping that economic development will return the country to its position as a beacon of stability in egypt. and

a toxic tourist trap claims that nato was dumping what is it including do you think you'll bring in indeed italian adriatic sea with silence from the alliance and the taliban government calls that a fisherman feared dead leave this. now almost half of russia's population smokes with one russian dying of a smoking related disease every minute our spotlight interview show host talks to a french long surgeon as you better about what can be done. well with. bringing you the latest in science and technology from around the world . we've got the future covered.

power again and welcome to spotlight the interview show and r.t. . and today my guest is. every year new viruses appear which contaminate thousands even then mutated flu can become a lethal weapon but a lot of people make it even worse by smoking cigarettes contain acid poison and even radio active elements no wonder cigarettes are called the cough and lives but how can we resist infections if we can't resist bad habits my guess is a surgeon who knows all about lungs and long disease professor.

in recent years a number of infections caused panic in many countries the most recent pandemic disease was the h one n one virus or swine flu which killed nearly fifteen thousand people but many people weaken their immune system by smoking instead of caring about their health professor zubair massara is one of those promoting healthy lifestyle he's an advocate of quitting smoking and he'll be explaining how small crews can keep the habit. host masowe thank you very much for coming and welcome welcome to spotlight well first of all according to the w. h. statistics in the near future the number of little heart attacks will be decreasing while today heart attacks is called the number one killer in the world while the number of people with chronic lung disease is on the rise is it true and if so

what's what's the reason why is such a trend well first of all we noticed since a couple of years that targeted by cardiovascular diseases is decreasing whereas maternity by can so or by lung diseases is interesting because it's so different definitely true and predictions for the year two thousand and twenty predict that for instance a chronic respiratory failure owing to smoking emphysema such diseases will be killer number three so. after heart disease and automobiles or after how this isn't cancer unfortunately heart disease and cancer still. will have a high rank but you should consider that heart disease for instance is better controlled because physicians all over the world better control risk factors and

the second point is that cardiologists. have improved treatment at the early stage promoting the cardio underground and invasive procedures such as standing you mentioned risk factors well for a long disease what are the main risk factors for the disease for a lung disease i would say that risk factor number one above all is smoking of course there are secondary factors such as professional exposure. there is a lot of progress which has been done over the years to improve working conditions . pollution of course is also of a concern but we shouldn't forget that smoking is fact the number one and it is a pollution that you choose yourself but how can we prevent disease for people living in such big and contaminated cities as must in new york city i

mean that the big big mega pounces i mean that it i think it made me doctors say specialists at least say that it's it's no better than smoking living in one in the center of a city big city is a true i think that is a little bit exaggerated i would say that smoking is by far the most dreadful factor because if we compare incidence of lung cancer on the countryside or in a large city it isn't that that much different because it is in france by smoking and not by air we pollution of course other diseases such as us to our chronic bronchitis also depend on where we are on air pollution and that is not the problem for doctors that's a problem for politicians to work on the call of gee how to improve ecology. you mentioned smoking in the lung cancer well nobody argues that that smokers

suffer from lung cancer more are from the nonsmokers but i heard it from doctors myself and is it true that there is no proof that that smoking causes lung cancer the mechanism of how smoking causes lung cancer is yet unknown so it is unproven well first that the precise mechanisms of genesis of lung cancer are on study and the more we find in molecular biology the more we open question. but on the other hand those doctors who say that lung cancer does not depend on smoking are probably smokers themselves and try to find some other reasons definitely there are serious epidemiology studies which have been published in the early sixty's already which demonstrated very clear relationship between smoking and lung cancer and most interestingly the first p.p.d.

a melodic survey on that question was made on english doctors. who said. many doctors also in russia are smokers and heavy smokers themselves and there i think that doctors don't play an active enough role in anti-smoking campaigns do you have the do you share the same feeling don't you think that doctors should should be more active in these campaigns more aggressive i would even say i entirely agree with you that doctors are people which are regarded in some way by the population and they should proceed with a good example. then of course it depends on which specialty. of the doctor he's working in i mean that. especially cardiologists and. physicians are aware of their impact on to fight against smoking and

if you look at scientific societies like for instance the russian association for new medicine you have the european respiratory society which had rates all upon a physicians of the european space they are very active in this making campaigns such as that those societies have antismoking committees who are actively working and. trying to influence the ministry of health because you know. there is there must be. i quit smoking myself exactly one year ago and the doctors helped me a lot because i made the several times i couldn't do it without doctors without medicine without special things but there is no advertisement to the i'm amazed like we're living in the twenty first century we cure near cards drug addicts heroin addicts you see advertising everywhere contract liddick will help you fight

alcohol will help you find heroin cocaine whatever there's no advertising come will help you will help you quit smoking why because is it because of the of the cigarette companies lobby they they won't allow these clinics to advertise or want . that's a political issue indeed and the exact role of the tobacco producers is not quite clear what happened so far as for instance in european countries. are inscriptions on the packages that smoking and dangerous have such you can die from smoking but i agree entirely with you that for the population does not quite clear where to go when you want to quit smoking although. most commonly doctors for instance have done some special teaching. for quitting of smoking habits because smoking is an addiction in the same way as alcohol or

herein and even worse to some people with me they said my diction was was worse then than with heroin addicts because because it's not it's not such just so destructive but it's very addictive let's see what russians think about smoking in about quitting spotlights cuts you know anyone who has tried to find that high there well according to the world health organization there's forty one real adult smokers in russia which is the highest number in the world well let's try to find out if this people even tried to quit smoking. yes i would because i spend lots of money on cigarettes i also want to try and live a bit longer if i could. yes i do because i'm tired of smoking and i don't want to waste my time on it but i'm scared of yes i did because it affects my health no one on why should a personal hero like smoking hi i'm so sorry for every minute i lost my cigarette.

i already tried a few thing but it's really nice small. i enjoy my cigarette every secret but what about your health i already hear to heart attack so i'm not really expecting to live forever with. yes well i did but not really. more because it is hard to do that i've been smoking now for about ten years and i will probably keep on doing it and rest of my life the rest of sort out i've got lucky you got a question get. smart with the can i without any help from doctors smoking cold turkey and not. well what we say i couldn't i couldn't quit until i got professional help from doctors what would you say is it is it possible for other people to quit without medical help well i take my own example i have been able to quit smoking. by motivation but my advantage was that

i smoked only actively five or six years for those people who smoked more than ten fifteen years the body is so much. addicted to nika ten that without specialist medical help. the failure rate is very high so i recommend first to have a high motivation and second to find a good doctor who helps was adequate medications for you call high motivation many be a did you hear that that guy saying that i like smoking i mean i will be a usually harmatz evasion when you when you visit a cancer clinic and said hey guy a year a year have problems this is what people call motivation that's unfortunately when people have can so have had their first heart attack it is a little bit later ready and it would have been preventable if they had quit smoking earlier says. i well no lung surgery spotlight will be

back shortly we will continue this interview after a break so stay with us then go. this is street still keeps its secrets but now it's time to reveal. the soviet finance

house on the embankment and. place. bringing you the latest in science and technology from the realms of russia. we've got the future covered. welcome back to spotlight on al gore and often just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is dr richard basham a sock i well know a lot of surgeon transfer intelligence. now we both as we find out a minute ago have been smokers and we both quit so we both know a lot lots of legends and stereotypes about smoking not smoking well i'll mention

some of them and you comment well of course you heard these things about my grandfather that living somewhere in georgia and the highland smoked and drank who had wine and lived lived up to the hundred and twelve years south which means smoking is good but another serious thing is that many people including me when i quit. at least for six or eight months i felt awful is it true that for a person who has been smoking for twenty thirty years it may be harmful to to quit nicotine which becomes part of the of the functioning of these organism. i don't think so of course you have a lot of versa facts when you quit smoking that is all the. addictive effects your body's missing something and this leads to several symptoms but all these symptoms are functional symptoms not organic symptoms so with appropriate treatment

this can be healed quite easily the big problem is that if you get disappointed because these symptoms come and you start smoking again this would be much more dreadful for your body in one of their legend which i call the legend about passive smoking. are you sure that passive smoking i mean sniffing smoke when somebody else is smoking nearby isn't as harmful as some say passive smoking is maybe not as harmful as active smoking but it should be regarded as a factor of increased risk very serious epidemiologic studies which have demonstrated that. the incidence of lung diseases such as chronic bronchitis or cancer is increased in passive smokers like you where i live on the first floor of . a building and. one of my neighbors said son a bench near the house and smokes

a cigarette all the time and the other one has his driver outside outside the door with his engine on waiting for him all the time and keeping the engine warm in the car which is worse for me the guy than smoking a cigarette in the garden or the guy that's keeping his car running if the person is sitting outside in the yard i would say the car is more than recurring. if you are really working if you're working and drum and if you have a leisure and you're on month where you're sitting in an unventilated room with many people smoking that becomes very dangerous that explains why in several european countries we have forwarded on to smoking laws so that it is forbidden to smoke at the working place to smoke in restaurants or cafes. the statistics show that you can't quit a cigarette but cigarette will never quit year what they mean is that you can

completely you can't completely undo the damage that smoke has already done to your lungs you have seen many lungs from the inside yeah is it true that i've quit smoking like smoking for a year and even in five in ten years. if anybody sees well then struck the usa there's our our there's guy that's awful is it true you can't do anything about it . yeah absolutely right. the immediate effect of smoking is that you have a clearance of some of the towers has which has stayed inside the bunker but they never clean completely and it seems that after ten years the risk for cancer for instance is a little bit decreasing but remains higher than in the senate and the other little there are smokers here. that sounds sad. there is movement in russia people are starting to quit smoking there is at least efforts to launch an

anti-smoking campaign but it still as we heard it still isn't effective when do you think. we will see the first effects of an anti-smoking campaign well if we say it started like a couple of years ago it will take couple of decades or less all depends generationally i think it can move forward quicker say eight to ten years and all depends how the minister of health is. helping in this campaign if for instance there is a law that there will be no more any advertisement for cigarettes if there is a law that you forbid smoking in public spaces on working places this will help a lot if you have just a complain where doctors are seeing smoking is dangerous please stop and nobody will follow of course it never see your lung diseases tuberculosis and when i was

a kid we heard that brutalizes is done away with there is no war to a close is maybe somewhere in africa or i don't know now it's coming back including russia including developed countries what's the reason is the truth what's the reason for that well the reason for the comeback of tuberculosis is probably an increase to the migration so that people coming from areas where tuberculosis is still a frequent problem coming to other countries where there is a low level of tuberculosis this may rise the level because in those countries where there is a low prevalence of the disease we are less. careful about it and we have lost the structures for early diagnosis so we get up to more advanced disease and the second problem is with ongoing biotech treatments you have a rise of resistant bacteria so. this also explains the phenomena.

long disease are a trigger not only by smoking or air pollution but also by viruses like swine flu which was the clear head at pandemic in two thousand and nine doctors have recently discovered its mutated version spotlights the me there has more. millions of people across the world were affected by swine flu the first than demick in forty years the much feared virus caused worldwide hysteria but eventually turned out to be much less dangerous than expected its death rate was hardly higher than common flu not that the pandemics declared over this chance that it's mutated version might strike back so far in the two cases of when you were discovered strain has been registered in the u.s. but that's enough for the world health organization to send out an international alarm the new virus strain is called a h three n two and is expected to be more dangerous than swine flu as it's actually

a combination of three different viruses including one with the death rate of up to eighty percent doctors hope to skate up in demick this year and hysteria over swine flu that simple as a fact on people it's made them more conscious and how to prevent it spread twenty five million russians have received their regular flu vaccinations this year. seven years ago the sars virus or which originated in china came to europe came to a part of all thirty seven countries were affected and thousands of people suffered it's really caused panic around the world can we avoid such that things in the future or as you said because of the openness migration these things are unavoidable. well i think if you look back to history you have had the. pandemic. flu infections all over the last century. these are monitored back to the twenty's so that

a pandemic status comes up to my sense cannot be avoided it will be enhanced of course by the intense migration we notice nowadays. therefore the only thing we can recommend the south professionals is to follow the advice to go to vaccination when it is advertised. last time there was this pandemic called the swine flu i was among those who strongly suspected that this new pajama going swine flu because they told me that that's why they're there they're pigs they suffer from any flu i mean any flu goes to pigs because pigs are genetically close to people yet so so i have i have a strong suspicion that it was all this pandemic that this this this bad it was a result of the cynical campaign by pharmaceutical companies which wanted to sell sell more and more drugs and and make people cautious do you do you believe this

may be a case by sort of from a suitable mafia trying to cause panic and then make people buy more and more drugs well of course. many people talk like that i cannot imagine that pharmaceutical companies completely create normal ethics and behave. this way normal that examiners business ethics are different from our in the south and. i would say that may be. the effect of this panic came from different principles there was also a kind of over estimation of the risk by the different national institutes of. when. we are talking about our health is it better to be too much cautious or not cautious enough or. has question i started quitting when i quit so i started by doing this computer tomography which is very expensive i mean i mean it costs this

cost nearly a thousand euro to make to make a telltale scan and you should find this find this machine i think only two or three of them in moscow when will that become cheaper and available to all of the people. when it will become available and when it will become cheaper i'm not the right person to say that the only thing i can say is that i. have been many. prospective studies on screening for lung cancer for instance with computer tomography and the results are quite controversial because some studies say yes it is useful and others say no it's not that useful because you find many nodules which are not cancer and you increase stress for patients. the cost of health care because some people go to an operation for instance which they don't really

need so it's like always it's not very clear cut. thank you thank you you haven't made me more optimistic but i assure you made your audience more informed which is good thank you for just a reminder that my guest today was chill back in the south doctor's exam the sat is a well known and long surgeon and that's it for now from all of us here if you want to have your say and spotlight drop me a line we'll be back with more first and comment on what's going in and around this country until then the state party and take care.

petey's. me to pieces.