Tobacco Control and HIV

[Guest guest]

Tobacco Control and HIV

By Gomez, AIDS.gov Director

Yesterday, Dr. Koh, Assistant Secretary for US Health and Secretary

Kathleen Sebelius launched the first ever comprehensive tobacco control

strategic action plan, Ending the Tobacco Epidemic: A Tobacco Control Strategic

Action Plan (PDF) that outlines specific, evidence-based actions that will help

create a society free of tobacco-related death and disease.

During a press conference at Washington University, Dr. Koh and Secretary

Sebelius were joined by Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) who announced new bolder graphic warning labels for

cigarette packages and advertisements.

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) also issued proposed

regulations that would require states to offer free smoking cessation counseling

and treatment to Medicaid enrollees who are pregnant.

Tobacco use and HIV/AIDS individually and taken together have tremendous health

impacts. Smoking rates of people living with HIV are estimated to be two to

three times higher than the national average . There is an increasing body of

evidence that smokers living with HIV have an increased mortality rates than HIV

postive non-smokers .

" This is especially important for populations that are dually effected, such as

communities of color and the LGBT community. We need to make sure that our HIV

programs are integrating tobacco cessation activities and we need to make sure

that our tobacco cessation programs are integrating with HIV interventions, "

said Scout, Director of the National LGBT Tobacco Control Network.

Stay tuned next week for a video with Scout and Matt Myers, President of the the

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids about smoking and LGBT/HIV communities.

What are you doing to address tobacco control in the HIV community?

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