Respiratory Medicine Program Committee

Could e-cigarettes save smokers’ lives? – April 29
Editorial from Dr. Alan Kaplan, Chair:
One of the most cost effective and life saving things you will ever do is help a patient stop smoking. Addiction to nicotine requires an organized office approach to ensure success in smoking cessation. NRT is a valuable option as is varenicline and buproprion, but these deal with nicotine issues alone, and less so the other issues of smoking which include the habit and social/stress issues. E cigarettes certainly can replace some of the habit and stress relief issues and the minimal chemical exposure concerns are really nothing compared to the demon that is cigarette smoking. Legislatures need to reassess this situation, and fast!
We have a lung cancer crisis in Canada – April 29
Editorial from Dr. Alan Kaplan, Chair:
Lung cancer is growing and 15% of people suffering from this disease are 'never' smokers. New advances in diagnosis with CT screening and targetted gene therapies are exciting new frontiers for lung cancer detection and treatment.
Quebec to enact smoking ban in prisons; last province to do so – April 19
Ex-smokers regain same health status of non-smokers, but can take years – February 20
New coronavirus as adept at infecting human lung cells as common cold virus: study – February 19