Media release

Medical Research Councils warns against hookahs in the holidays

Professor Anthony Mbewu, President of the Medical Research Council, today reiterated an earlier warning against the use of hookah pipes. We are particularly concerned about a possible escalation of hookah pipe use in the holiday season, in part because of telephonic queries to our organization from parents intending to purchase hookah pipes as Christmas presents for their children, he said.

There is a widely held, but mistaken, belief that hookah pipe smoking is harmless, or less harmful than cigarette smoking,” said Professor Angela Mathee, Director of the MRC’s Environment and Health Research Unit (E&HRU). “On the contrary, the World Health Organization has advised that there is no evidence that the use of hookah pipes is safe, and that in some respects may be even more harmful and hazardous to health than cigarettes,” she added. She went on to say that “over and above the risk of lung cancer, emphysema, cardiovascular disease and nicotine addiction associated with smoking tobacco, the shared use of hookah pipes in groups may also play a role in the transmission of diseases such as tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, swine flu and oral herpes.”

Members of an MRC research team have seen children as young as two years of age smoking hookah pipes, she said. An important reason for children’s use of hookah pipes is that parents tolerate it because they mistakenly believe that hookah pipes are safe, she explained. We are alarmed by the prospect of parents purchasing hookah pipes as gifts for their adolescent or younger children, she said.

Professor Mathee went on to say that following a hookah hazard awareness campaign earlier in 2009, many parents, and even community leaders, had come forward to say that they simply did not know that hookah pipes are as dangerous as cigarettes. Ward Councillor Fahdiel Moosa of the City of Johannesburg explained how he had purchased a hookah pipe for his teenaged daughters as a gift, but after the awareness campaign, had discussed the health hazards with them, and as a family had reached an agreement to stop hookah smoking.

Professor Mathee said that “with the holiday season upon us, we are keen to remind all South Africans that whether you’re smoking cigarettes or hookah pipes, it is still tobacco, and still hazardous to health. Professor Mbewu ended by saying that “smoking a hookah pipe equates to increasing your risk of disease and an early death, and that nobody, especially children, deserves such a gift at Christmas or any other time.”

END

For further information:

Professor Angela Mathee
Director: Environment & Health Research Unit, Medical Research Council
amathee@mrc.ac.za
011 274 6078 (office telephone)
011 642 6832 (office facsimile)
082 464 7038 (cellular telephone)

Ward Councillor Fahdiel Moosa
011 673 6627 (office telephone)
082 450 1468 (cellular telephone)

ANYONE INTERESTED IN QUITTING SMOKING CAN GET HELP FROM
THE NATIONAL COUNCIL AGAINST SMOKING’S
QUIT LINE 011 7203145.