Sorry, got no time to write about this news. This is a great pledge by the UK government – lets hope they stick to it.

A plan to halve the number of smokers in England over the next 10 years has been unveiled by ministers.

The number of people smoking has fallen by a quarter in the past decade to 21%, and the proposed target is 10% by 2020.

Measures being considered include removing branding from packets and banning cigarette vending machines, as will happen in Scotland next year.

Smokers’ lobby group Forest criticised the proposals for eroding people’s ability to make lifestyle choices.

Health charity Ash said that while it supported the plans in principle, there was a need for more detail and stronger pledges.

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Graph showing proportion of people smoking in Great Britain

The government said each year smoking caused 80,000 deaths and cost the NHS £2.7bn.

Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said the strategy would “discourage children from taking up smoking and prevent a great number of unnecessary and early deaths”.

The smoking ban in enclosed public places was introduced in Scotland in 2006, and in England, Wales and Northern Ireland separately in 2007.

It’s been quite a while since my last update on Mumma K’s progress. The last update in April was the relatively good news that the radiotherapy had helped shrink the tumour in the affected lung. However it was known that the cancer had already spread quite a bit. One of the things with lung cancer is most people don’t know they’ve got it because the symptoms are undetectable. It was the lump in the neck that spurred on an x-ray which confirmed the worst fears.

There are 4 stages of lung cancer and sadly Mumma K was diagnosed as Stage 3. This late detection being the main reason for the spread. What makes things worse is that 2 years prior to all this Mumma K had issues with her throat, yet even though doctors knew of her smoking, no chest x-ray was done. It’s all too easy to say ‘what if’ but who knows if this was an early sign of problems.

In August Mumma K was started on a relatively new chemotherapy drug called Erlotinib. Tarceva (it’s brand name) is a advanced non small cell lung cancer treatment for people who have already had chemotherapy which is no longer working. It comes with range of side effects, as most chemo treatments do, and it was noticeable after a week or so that the treatment appeared to make Mumma K’s breathing difficult. It was in the last few months that Mumma K was deteriorating substantially with even short walks becoming a struggle. In September we went on a family trip to Whipsnade zoo, which wouldn’t been possible without a wheelchairs and lifts.

A check-up yesterday confirmed our fears and Mumma K was given 3 months to live. Since diagnosis of the cancer back in December 2008 we’ve always remained staunchly positive around her and never allowed her to get down. The only good thing to come out of this news is that she’ll see one more Christmas. So we’re hoping to make this special and also we’re aiming to get her to London Zoo as soon as possible to see her much loved gorillas. Hopefully she’ll be well enough to make the trip as currently her back is in a lot of pain – which means that she’s doped out on Morphine.

I added a Facebook status last night aimed at my friends that smoke. “If you’re a smoker, give up now. If not for yourself, then do it for the people that care about you because they’re the ones that you will hurt most when you’re dying from it”. It’s a harsh statement. I know giving up smoking is a hard thing but if out of all this one person changes their life by giving up(or even giving it damn good shot) i’ll be a happy man.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could detect which people were more likely to develop lung cancer? Or even if we could tell if they had no risk at all?

Well hopefully we’ve got a few steps closer to finding this out. A formidable medical survey has been conducted in Singapore and Shanghai. It has found that people with higher levels of the chemcial NNAL in their blood stream were 43% more likely to get lung cancer.

The chemical NNAL can be measured from a urine sample. It’s purpose is thought to metabolise tobacco in the body.

This test doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable to smoke if you’re found to have a low risk. There are plenty of other ways to die from smoking including: heart disease, emphysema,and other cancers.

Read the full story and audio file here

We have some good news. Mumma K’s radiotherapy has reduced the size of the tumour in her lung. This is absolutely brilliant news and the doctor is very happy with the progress. It’s not over yet but this big step in the right direction.

Mumma K actually found the radiotherapy not as bad as the chemotherapy. It didn’t knock her out as much as chemotherapy however it did badly burn her throat which was big discomfort. Even her passion, chocolate, was hard to swallow!

Also i’m now a married man. The wedding day being a big success with much fun had by all. It was emotional but we always knew it would be. Now the wife and i are off on our honeymoon for 2 weeks. I think the Maldives will help with a much needed chill out

Well it will be a happy no smoking day if you take some steps to give up smokng today. Best of luck to everyone!