North Dakota Media Notices TFND and Partners Quit Week Efforts

There’s been a significant amount of media coverage surrounding Quit Week from TFND and our partners. We are so thrilled with the attention everyone is getting for this worthy cause! Below is a growing list of the media coverage received so far:

New Zealand will ban disposable e-cigarettes in a bid to prevent minors from taking up the habit

New Zealand is taking decisive action against disposable e-cigarette products. CDC data show disposable products are the overwhelming choice for kids and they cause significant harm to the environment.

To read the full article, click here.

WHO: Tobacco use falling, urge countries to invest in helping more people to quit tobacco

A new World Health Organization (WHO) shows 60 countries are on track to reduce tobacco usage from 2010-2025 by 30 percent or more. The report also says investment in evidence-based practices like funding quitlines (among other cessation practices) could help more than 150 million people quit. To read the report, follow the link.

KX News: Help available for tobacco users

KX News interviewed TFND about the upcoming #QuitWeek2021. You can read the full article by clicking here.

PuffBar Defies FDA Order and Brings Products Back to Market

Puff Bar was ordered to take their products off the market by the FDA. They’ve brought them back in an effort to skirt FDA regulations and get youth hooked on nicotine. Read more about their move in this Wall Street Journal article.

Foster County Passes Tobacco Free Park Policy

Congratulations to Foster County for passing a tobacco free parks policy! These policies are critical to ensure every North Dakotan breathes clean air in public places. Thanks to all parties and the commission who worked so hard on to make this happen. To read the policy, click here. 

CNN: The fight against Covid-19 should also be the fight against tobacco

This story was posted on CNN’s website on June 3. The opinion piece was written by Kelly Henning, the director of public health at Bloomberg Philanthropies. She’s also a former professor of infectious disease at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and served as director of the Division of Epidemiology at the New York City Health Department.

 

Community Readiness Survey Shows Startling Concerns About Tobacco in North Dakota

The 2019 Community Readiness Survey of North Dakota is showing adults across the state are deeply worried about tobacco use, particularly among youth.

Just a few numbers in the survey show:

  • 3 out of 4 (75 percent) of ND adults believe tobacco use is a moderate or serious problem among youth.
  • Nearly 92 percent of adults don’t believe kids should be using e-cigarette products
  • Nearly 57 percent of adults say the tobacco taxes in North Dakota should be increased, something that hasn’t happened since 1993.
  • 82 percent of people say e-cigarettes should be taxed at the same rate as other tobacco products

To read the full survey, click here

ABC23: Family warns of symptoms and health dangers of vaping

This story was posted on ABC23’s website on April 14. ABC23 serves Bakersfield, California. The original link to the story can be found here

Family warns of symptoms and health dangers of vaping

Posted at 8:41 PM, Apr 14, 2020

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — This past march 16-year-old Ryker Schamblin had a cough along with nausea and vomiting for about a week. So, his parents took him to urgent care where he got an x-ray, doctors thought he had pneumonia and prescribed standard medications and sent him home.

A few days later Ryker hadn’t improved and was still having trouble breathing, so they took him to the emergency room.

“Immediately kind of thought it was a COVID to be honest with you. He had the clinical picture of a COVID presentation,” said Mark Schamblin, Ryker’s dad.

Ryker was immediately admitted into the intensive care unit. He was put on oxygen, and given an x-ray, CT scan and was tested for COVID-19. After his first night in the ICU his breathing worsened, and doctors said he had acute respiratory distress syndrome also known as ARDS. The next morning doctors told his parents his x-rays were ten times worse and he needed to be intubated immediately.

“As dad it’s a nightmare. I’ve said often times if there’s one thing that could break me it would be losing a kid or losing him. So, as a dad it’s painful and as a doctor who’s seen these things sometimes go the wrong way, you can’t help but panic that he’s not going to come out of it,” said Mark.

Ryker’s doctors began some treatment but were waiting for the result of his COVID-19 test to ensure the next best course of treatment. The hospital even sending the COVID-19 test out of town to get faster results.

His test came back negative but while the nurses prepped Ryker for the ventilator, they found a clue that lead to the right diagnoses, vape pens.

Ryker was placed on a RotoProne bed, used to treat acute respiratory distress. Part of the bed treatment required him to be placed facedown for 16 hours. His family said it was hard to sign off on the treatment once they saw the risks which included, facial disfiguration, blindness and skin wounds.

“That was the hardest part was while he was on the RotoProne bed because we couldn’t see him,” said Dana Schamblin, Ryker’s mom.

After eight days of being in a medically induced coma and a series of breathing tests, Ryker finally began to recover.

His parents said they took pictures because, “We wanted him to be able to see them and see what he went through. I mean our word versus – pictures speak for themselves,” said Dana.

Ryker is home now recovering, he lost 30 pounds in the hospital and said he never thought this would happen to him. He also hopes he can let other people know the danger of vaping.

“Just don’t do it. You don’t want to go through that, you don’t want to see your parents cry, you don’t want to see any of that there’s no point,” said Ryker.

CNN Health: Now’s the time to quit smoking: It could increase your odds of beating Covid-19

This article appeared on CNN Health’s webpage on April 3, 2020. The original link to the article can be found here.

Now’s the time to quit smoking: It could increase your odds of beating Covid-19

By Ryan Prior

(CNN)If you’ve been thinking about quitting smoking, there’s no time like the present pandemic.

With the novel coronavirus sweeping the globe, the science on quitting smoking offers welcome news for smokers who want to build up their defenses in case they contract Covid-19.
Though it may still take many months for a smoker’s lungs to heal from damage caused by long-term smoking, your health can noticeably improve in the days and weeks after quitting in ways that could make a difference against the virus.
Although you can’t reverse scarring to your lungs caused by smoking, there are a number of ways your lung health can improve in the short term, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Time to strengthen your lungs

“Every lung doctor in America will be preaching that everyone should quit smoking.” Dr. Brian Christman, a volunteer spokesman with the American Lung Association and a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, told CNN. While this message isn’t new, it’s more relevant than ever.

Covid-19 creates an added sense of urgency, and there’s ample reason to believe that quitting smoking during the pandemic could increases your odds of fighting off the virus.
If you make the decision to quit, the cilia in your lungs are one of the first parts of your body to heal. These hair-like projections wave back and forth like a brush as air moves in and out of your lungs. They help your body fight off colds and infection, the CDC says. They also help clear mucus, so if they’re not functioning as well as they should, mucus can build up in the lungs.
Your body’s inclination to cough during an infection helps activate the bodily process of clearing out mucus, called the mucociliary escalator. That’s vital in fighting the Covid-19 condition.
The elderly are at a greater risk for excessive lung fluid that often limits breathing following coronavirus infection because “old folks don’t have a strong enough cough to clear it up,” Christman said.

Quitting can reduce inflammation

A second short-term gain from quitting smoking comes from reducing ongoing inflammation in your body, which can predispose you to Covid-19.
“If you quit smoking, the chronic inflammation goes away after a few weeks,” Christman said.
You’ll notice you won’t have as many symptoms of being short of breath when walking or climbing stairs, the CDC says.
Christman noted that smokers tend to need several months to stop producing higher levels of mucus, which their lungs create in order to clear out tar and other particulates contained in cigarettes.
“In terms of structural change, it takes a little while to clear the whole space,” he said.
Having your lungs in as good of shape as you can in case of a coronavirus infection is key. Covid-19 patients frequently experience acute lung injury, which can cause leakiness in mucus membranes, leading to what’s called acute respiratory distress syndrome, Christman said. This condition can result in patients drowning in their own mucus.
For smokers, “at baseline you’re set up for chronic bronchitis,” Christman said. “With Covid, it gets worse.”
And even if you’re not living in an area where there are numerous coronavirus cases, your decision to quit smoking might pay off down the road. That’s because public health authorities have projected multiple waves of cases over the next 18 months could be possible.
“It’s an investment in the future,” he said. “Covid might circulate in the Southern Hemisphere and then come back. Someone quitting now might really help themselves in the second wave.”

Respiratory failure is a common cause of death

For those who are diagnosed with Covid-19 and either fall seriously ill or die from it, respiratory failure or significant lung damage is common.
According to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report through March 28, 78% of US Covid-19 cases requiring intensive care unit admission came from patients who self-reported a recognized risk factor or a diagnosis of at least one underlying medical condition.
Current or former smoking status was among the shortlist of risk factors, along with other traits known to put people at risk for respiratory illness, including pregnancy. The most commonly reported underlying conditions included diabetes, chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease, and immune compromised conditions.

Quitting smoking helps with blood circulation

Besides lung-related issues, smoking cessation can also deliver healthy benefits to the heart that could help stave off the possibility of cardiac arrest. Heart attacks are another cause of death in Covid-19 cases.
After you quit smoking, your blood becomes thinner and less susceptible to clotting, the CDC says. Heart attacks are less likely. One reason this happens is because smokers inhale carbon monoxide, and thereby diminish their capacity to carry oxygen and make it harder for the heart to distribute blood throughout the body.
“There is the occasional patient with Covid who dies from heart failure,” Christman says. He noted that in some cases, clinicians were seeing patients with elevated levels of troponins — a sign of heart attack that can be triggered by a severe infection.
You may already be practicing social distancing, washing your hands frequently and avoiding touching your face. In addition to all these, limiting or quitting smoking is yet another important aspect of your anti-coronavirus arsenal.
“Now is the time to take care of yourself,” Christman said.