operator

I have just arrived back from BKK with Eva and in fairness to Eva the announcement system at the airport is atrocious. It's so quite you can hardly hear what is being said at the departure gate.

Ordered £500 worth of Thai baht cash from the Travelex website Sunday night using my Lloyds TSB debit card to be picked up Wednesday evening from Heathrow Terminal 3 before my flight to Bangkok. Something i've done many times before. Last time was in February. All went ok just just awaiting payment confirmation from Lloyds TSB. Monday afernoon gets a email from Travelex, payment from Lloyds TSB refused. Phoned Travelex thinking i'd made a mistake entering my start end dates etc. No such luck, it seems Lloyds TSB have changed their system. If your getting foreign currency in CASH then it's treated as a cash point withdrawl, ie my daily cash point limit is £200 a day so i could only get £200 worth of cash in foreign currency. What a complete joke this is. Phoned LLoyds who who weren't very helpful. Well they were willing to be very helpful if i ordered the currency from them. I believe traveler cheques should be ok, just if you want cash.

I always fly economy with EVA. Out of 12 EVA Air flights over the last couple of years i've had 4 flights that were nowhere near full. You can make a nice bed when you have 3 seats to yourself. Something you can't guarantee on, but nice when it happens. I believe the armrests etc between each seat in evergreen deluxe can't be moved so no way of laying down even if you have an empty seat next to you.

The last Eva Air flight i was on in February landed slightly late, but the immigration queues were pretty long. Not helped by Eva having hardly any immigration arrival cards on the flight. Then i seem the have the knack of always picking the wrong queue. Couldn't work out why the queue i was in was so much slower than the others. As i got near the front realized that the immigration counter for our queue had only one immigration officer, the rest had two. If i remember my timings correctly, the plane was scheduled to arrive at 15.35. Landed about 16.00.

Didn't pickup my case until about 17.15.

I'm also a great fan of Eva. Have flown BA to Bangkok and back but never again with them, mainly to do with the attitude of the cabin crew. Some wag on the pprune website is saying people are calling the new T5 terminal Hotel California. You can checkin any time you want but you can never leave.

The Forth Bridge is being painted with a high tech paint, meaning it won't need painting again for 30 years.

Then there's the joy of crossing 2nd road holding your girls hand. Ok we go now, have to pull her back, you must be joking. We could have crossed she says no we couldn't yes we could etc etc. After about 30 seconds arguing who was right or wrong have another go at crossing.

Some pictures of Songkran.

A few times i got soaked and the water was absolutely freezing. Couldn't work out why the water was so cold. One day sitting in a bar which was throughing water at passerbyers. At 6pm they started to packup for the day. Emptied the larger container of any water left in it then took out these huge piece of ice !!!!. No wonder the water was so cold.

I've had this problem before with Lloyds TSB, even phoning them before leaving telling them i would be in Thailand withdrawing money from atms and please don't block my card. Of course it got blocked after a couple of withdrawls. Phoned up the UK helpline who unblocked it. I did ask why it had been blocked when i had told them specifically not to block my card. The reply was it doesn't matter a dam_n if you've informed them before hand, if the security system thinks it's dodgy your card gets blocked.

Senior BAA staff trained for security role

Last Updated: 9:58pm GMT 25/12/2007

As a strike by airport workers looms Jonathan Russell reveals that senior managers are being trained to take over from security guards

BAA, owner of Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and four other UK airports, has put in place emergency measures to train hundreds of senior managers to maintain security at the airports in the face of planned strikes by security guards and other employees.

The strike has the potential to leave the airport exposed to infiltration by terror groups

The Spanish-owned airport operator has spent the past three weeks training managers to guard the periphery of the airports so that the essential security cordon is not breached by a walkout.

The management training regime highlights the lengths to which BAA directors are going in their attempt to avoid what would prove a highly damaging strike for a company struggling to refinance £9bn of debt and facing a potential break-up at the hands of the Competition Commission.

Although a large-scale strike would almost inevitably lead to the airports' closure to passengers, having managers step in as interim security guards would allow essential maintenance and operational work to continue at the airports.

Senior managers at BAA are understood to be concerned that if the ring of security at checkpoints around airports such as Heathrow is allowed to drop for just a matter of hours it could take weeks to re-establish the areas as secure.

advertisementA spokesman for BAA said: "We are looking at contingency plans but we don't believe the strike is either necessary or inevitable, so we are more focused on resolving the issue than we are on discussing contingency planning in public."

UK airports, especially Heathrow, have long been seen as a target for terrorist attacks. Scares over shoe bombs, liquid bombs and missile attacks have brought chaos to the airport as police and security services have battled to keep the airport safe.

If the special measures are not put in place, the strike by 5,000 employees, including firefighters and security guards, has the potential to leave the airport exposed to infiltration by terror groups.

On Friday, BAA employees voted to strike on four days next month - January 7, 14, 17 and 18 - over a decision by the company to close its final salary pension scheme to new employees.

The planned dispute is part of what is building up to be a month of possible travel chaos for holidaymakers and business travellers. Airline Virgin Atlantic is also facing strike action over pay with two, two-day strikes by cabin crew scheduled on January 9-10 and January 16-17.

In an attempt to avert the strike, BAA is planning meetings with the union Unite over the Christmas period and chief executive Stephen Nelson is ready to become personally involved in the negotiations should that be required.

Union representatives are particularly concerned that the closure of the final salary scheme to new staff is a slippery slope that will ultimately lead to the axing of such arrangements for current members, along the lines of the decisions taken by rat-catching group Rentokil Initial and retailer WH Smith.

The union is understood to be asking for a guarantee that BAA never seeks such draconian action - something the airports operator is currently unwilling to give. BAA may be willing to put some sort of long-term guarantee in writing, though it is unclear for how long.

The BAA board, which in August brought in City troubleshooter Sir Nigel Rudd to quell a summer of discontent over its running of Britain's major airports, is understood to fear the political consequences of a strike.

Under pressure from politicians and the press, not to mention airlines and passengers, the airports operator realises that a damaging industrial dispute would greatly weaken its case for not being broken up by the regulators.

The dates in the press are "Unite said its members - including firefighters, security and operational staff - will walk out for 24 hours on Jan 7 and Jan 14.

If an agreement is not reached, there will be a 48-hour stoppage on Jan 17."

I'm due to fly out on Eva Air on the 16th from Heathrow. As Eva Air don't fly into Heathrow on a Monday (14th Jan) i'm hoping if the strike goes ahead it won't affect Eva Air. Well here's hoping.

Stayed at the Novotel in May due to Eva Air cancelling their flight. They have a shuttle service about every 15 mins running from the airport to the hotel and vice versa. I doubt anyone would, but you can walk it in 10 minutes.

From the Times 2nd August.

It is better known for its ancient temples, beautiful beaches and mouth-watering cuisine, but Thailand is also the deadliest destination for British holidaymakers.

As millions prepare to flee a British summer that has been at best lukewarm, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office published figures yesterday showing the countries where Britons are most likely to seek help from their embassy.

Unsurprisingly, Spain, which attracts about 14 million Britons a year, tops almost every category for holidaymakers in peril. But when the figures are adjusted to show the proportion of travellers affected, Thailand is by far the most dangerous.

Australia and India, also favourite backpacking destinations, are ranked second and third for the ratio of British visitors seeking “serious assistance” - where more than advice is needed. Britons are also most likely to lose their passport Down Under.

Perhaps surprisingly, Britons are arrested at a higher rate in the United States than in any of the other ten countries where they most need a British embassy for help.

The Foreign Office said that the Thailand figures, for April 2005 to March last year and released in British Behaviour Abroad, showed that “although Brits are getting more adventurous, they are not doing enough preparation before they go”.

The 381,000 who travelled from Britain to the SouthEast Asian kingdom were nearly five times more likely to die than those visiting the second deadliest - India. They were also 50 per cent more likely to be taken to hospital in Thailand than in second-placed Greece. About 24 out of 10,000 Britons needed serious assistance from a consulate in Thailand, double the rate of those visiting Australia.

Travel agents said that the problems arose from cheap flights and underprepared travellers. A spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agents said: “The majority of people travelling to Thailand are back-packers. They often travel uninsured and stay in cheap accommodation. If you’re travelling like that for an extended period you are more likely to end up with a problem.”

One staff member of the British Embassy in Bangkok, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “The embassy is having to devote more and more resources to these kind of problems. But we can’t send away British citizens who need help.”

The Czech Republic has become a surprise addition to the destinations where Britons most often encounter problems. The report says that it features “as one of the countries where most consular assistance is required, with a disproportionate number of lost passports, arrests and hospitalisations. This is likely to be due to the massive influx of hen and stag parties to Prague.”

Britons in search of cheap alcohol are the second-biggest group of visitors after Germans, said David Frous, of the Czech Embassy in London. “I cannot deny that the number of potential problems relating to stag parties is large,” he said. “But there are large numbers of UK nationals coming to the Czech Republic, so as well as more good people, you get bad people too.”

But British diplomats said that most of their work involved dealing with Britons who fell prey to petty crime. Peter Wickenden, second secretary at the British Embassy in Prague, said: “A relatively small proportion of our consular assistance is taken up with Britons causing trouble.”

Diplomats have been visiting brothels in the city, distributing Foreign Office-branded beermats and posters warning British visitors against “sobering up in a cell”.

Meg Munn, Foreign & Commonwealth Office Minister, said: “One of the most important tasks for the Foreign Office is our work to help British nationals in distress overseas. As this report shows, although some of the incidents people face are unavoidable, many can be prevented with a little planning and careful preparation. Simple precautions – like researching your destination, getting comprehensive travel insurance, checking medical requirements and taking copies of important documents – could help in the long run to avoid common traumas, risks and dangers.”

A normal evening at Heathrow airport and a legion of weary travellers pour through Terminal 3, down the stairs and on.

For many, it's their first taste of Britain and, sheep-like, they follow signs that direct them to the train - a route billed as 'the fastest way to central London'.

The only trouble is that the moving travelator has broken down ('out of service due to maintenance work'), so, instead, they have to haul their luggage hundreds of yards along an ill-lit, narrow underground corridor that is being renovated and smells of sewage.

At least the diversion gives them time to appreciate a series of glossy wall-mounted advertisements for a bank - involving a subtle analysis of different opinions.

There is a photograph of a piece of broccoli over which the word 'good' has been printed. Next to it is a slice of chocolate cake, bearing the word 'bad'. The two photos are then repeated with the adjectives reversed after which comes the punchline: 'There's always more than one way of looking at the world.'

But not, it seems, at Heathrow.

Consider, for starters, the views of Kieran Loughran a 37-year-old from Chiswick, West London. He's just one of the 68 million people who use Heathrow every year, who had the misfortune to pass through Terminal 4 recently. 'Parts of this airport look like a refugee camp,' he observed. 'It is grey, dismal, depressing and expensive, an embarrassment to Britain.'

Then there's Caroline Lovat, 50, from Shenley, Herts, an experienced flier. 'I've been to dozens of different airports in the past six months and this is by far the worst,' she says. 'Heathrow is particularly drab and depressing when you arrive. First impressions of Britain are awful.'

Or what about Londoner Ahmet Tekcan. The 22-year-old has been waiting at arrivals in Terminal 4 for two hours to greet a friend whose flight has been delayed. There's only a handful of seats, so he and dozens like him are perched on the floor.

'It's uncomfortable and tiring,' he says. 'I can't move in case I miss my friend coming out. There's plenty of room for shops - but not for seats. It's rubbish.'

Indeed, such is the strength of feeling when it comes to Heathrow even Tony Douglas, the airport's chief executive, felt moved to admit that what he sees in the terminals make him 'cringe'. 'Quite frankly, at times,' he said in an interview, 'it is held together by sticking plaster.'

(Right sentiment, wrong substance. It's gaffer tape. Go to Terminal Three and look down - that's what's been used to repair rips in the grey, worn carpet.)

This admission of failure came before the recent terror threats, which once more threw Heathrow into chaos, turning the check-in halls into scenes reminiscent of refugee camps, while families heading abroad at the start of the school holidays face huge delays from more stringent security checks.

Of course, one could argue that it is hardly the airport's fault that the action of a few fanatics has necessitated tighter controls. But one might equally point out that American airports face an arguably greater risk on a daily basis, and after the initial delays in the wake of 9/11, have poured enough resources into airport security so that passengers face minimal disruption.

Besides, here in Britain, criticism of Heathrow is more commonly excused by the claim that when Terminal 5 opens next March then what has become known as the Heathrow Hassle will be consigned to history.

'Terminal 5 is very much the golden key that will unlock many of the legacy challenges that we continue to have at Heathrow,' Douglas has promised. 'I'm the guy who built Terminal 5, so I spent 4 1/2 years of my life on creating the future, the gateway to the United Kingdom that we can all be proud of.'

But others are far less confident. Indeed, among the business community there is growing concern that the problems facing Heathrow are more to do with mismanagement than anything else - a direct consequence of its operators trying to get maximum returns for minimum investment.

Heathrow is operated by BAA, a company bought by Ferrovial, the Spanish construction group, for £10.3billion last summer. The acquisition left the company heavily burdened by debt, a price it evidently considered worthwhile for control of Britain's leading airports.

For as well as Heathrow, BAA also owns Gatwick, Stansted and Southampton airports which, taken together, handle 90 per cent of passenger-traffic in the South-East. Meanwhile, its three Scottish airports - Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen - handle 80 per cent of passengers north of the border.

Given this near monopoly, critics say there is little incentive to improve the experience for the passengers. After all, if they don't like it, where else can they go?

It's a point that was recently raised by both British Airways and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic. They urged the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to impose limits on the dividends that BAA's Spanish owners could 'strip out of the business', claiming that a dividend cap was necessary to ensure cash is reinvested into British airports rather than lining pockets in Madrid.

Evidence given by British Airways to the CAA as part of its five-yearly review of our airports says it was 'concerned' that BAA now has a 'highly leveraged financial structure'. It added that it believed measures were required to 'protect the integrity of airport operations from the possible consequences of this structure'.

The subsequent CAA report noted: 'It (British Airways) suggested that the regulated business should be ringfenced... and that there should be a cash lock-up, restricting the payment of dividends or other means of stripping cash out of the business in defined circumstances.'

Virgin also told the regulator that the level of cash extraction required by Ferrovial to service the huge debt it took on to buy BAA 'should be examined as a possible public interest issue'.

They are not alone in this belief. Paul Killik, senior partner at London stockbrokers Killik & Co, regularly flies through Heathrow and says that service has suffered in the past 12 months.

'I feel that Ferrovial overpaid for it and they are trying to squeeze every last penny out of it that they can,' he says. 'I am highly critical of the acquisition. They had to borrow huge amounts of money to buy it and have subsequently got stung by rising interest rates which has led them to look to cut costs.'

Specific criticisms of the Heathrow experience tend to focus on two areas. First, that commercial interests dominate those of the travelling public. Forget public seating, today it's all about packing in as many shops and restaurants as possible.

Sir Terence Conran, the restaurateur and design guru, was responsible for creating the interiors of the Terminal 1 building in the Sixties and says the change in approach is pronounced.

'According to the design brief in those days, the priority was a concern for the users' comfort and, in particular, to relax and put at ease people who, at that time, might have been anxious about air travel,' he recalls. 'These days, it seems, every square inch must be turned over to retail space, and that is sacrificing travellers' comfort. My general impression of Heathrow is that it is a pretty unpleasant place.

'What I find extraordinary is that once you get away from the central shopping areas, which are reasonably well-maintained and clean, then it's really dirty and grubby.

'If you visit some of the outlying areas, you'll find floor tiles held together with gaffer tape and rubbish left lying around. In the so-called lounges, the upholstery is frayed and light fittings are broken. The feeling you get is that unless it's generating income, they simply don't care about it.'

Sir Terence continues: 'At the root of this is that BAA knows perfectly well that it's the airlines that will get the blame. People don't understand that BAA is responsible. If the lounges are dirty when you're on your way to boarding, or your bags don't arrive, you blame the airline.

'But the worst thing of all about the condition of Heathrow is that it's such a hugely bad advertisement for this country. Here we have Gordon Brown commissioning the Cox Report on the value of design to this country and its economy, and yet the first impression that one gets of this country is of this squalid, cheapskate place which is just out to fleece travellers.'

The second criticism is that BAA's attempts to implement changes to security at the airport have been nothing short of disastrous.

The problems can be traced back to last August and a security alert that saw travellers banned from carrying liquids (and just about anything else) in hand luggage.

Of course, teething problems and delays were unavoidable initially but, a year on, passengers are still regularly facing lengthy queues to have bags searched and scanned.

Michael Snyder is chairman of the City of London's policy and resources committee and says that these delays dominate the conversation of visiting business leaders.

'In private conversation they are always discussing the latest disaster, the latest bad experience at Heathrow,' he said. 'The fact of the matter is that even in supermarkets they have realised that as demand for checkouts increases, so must the number of checkout assistants on hand. This doesn't seem to happen at Heathrow.

'This is purely a management thing - it isn't rocket science. People who are used to running businesses understand varying demand but BAA does not seem to be up to the challenge.'

Particularly infuriating for the travelling public is the defence that the number of security lines are limited by space. Why not just knock down a couple of shops, says Mr Snyder - a move that would make BAA money in the long run?

'If you get passengers through security more quickly then they will have more time to shop,' he explains. 'Given that the rents in the shops charged by BAA are turnover-based they will actually get more rent because they get more turnover. It's simple.'

Beyond personal inconvenience, there are concerns that if action is not taken immediately to improve Heathrow's reputation then real damage will be done not just to the airport but to the wider economy as a whole.

Heathrow is a hub airport where travellers not served by direct flights change planes to go on to their final destinations. If these transit passengers fall away too much there is a danger that some airlines will stop using Heathrow, reducing London's excellent air connections.

Baroness Valentine, chief executive of business organisation London First, fears that delays combined-with Customs checks and immigration procedures risk 'jilting world business leaders away from London and into the open arms of Paris, Frankfurt and even Tokyo'.

She warns: 'Business travellers' experience at London's airports has a potential impact on tens of thousands of UK jobs. Heathrow is often their first experience of the UK.

'If we let business leaders' negative first impressions become final impressions, they may opt to fly to rival cities.'

Of all the steps being advocated to address Heathrow's problems, the most often aired is the break-up of the BAA monopoly. This is being considered by the Competition Commission, to whom the matter was referred by the Office of Fair Trading earlier this year.

So how does BAA respond to such threats? With breathtaking arrogance, the billionaire head of Ferrovial, Rafael del Pino, has threatened that unless he is allowed to make more profit from Heathrow, then he might withhold funding to redevelop Terminals 1 and 2, severely jeopardising the airport's plans to cope with the influx of visitors for the 2012 Olympics.

In what critics have described as a crude blackmail attempt, he has demanded the right to charge airlines more for landing at Heathrow, despite the fact that BAA made profits of more than £750 million last year.

In the meantime, BAA insists that things will get better. Heathrow, it says, was designed to deal with 45 million passengers a year but is now handling 68 million. The pressure should have been eased by Terminal 5 - had it not been delayed by interminable planning rows - which will handle 30 million when it opens next year.

On the subject of travelators, lifts and escalators it claims that the machinery operates as it should

98.5 per cent of the time while adding that a further 500 extra security staff have recently been taken on to man checkpoints and reduce travel delays.

A step in the right direction, of course, but with the summer holidays just beginning and the terror threat once again paralysing services, there's a few million frequent flyers who'll take some convincing that there's happiness to be had at Heathrow - and not just hassle.

Saw this in todays Telegraph. Apologies if this story has been posted before.

A new EU law that makes it an offence to take more than 10,000 euros (£6,760) out of the country without telling the tax authorities could trip up owners of homes overseas and pensioners taking the holiday of a lifetime.

The 10,000 euro limit applies to the equivalent in any currency and covers cash and any kind of cheques

As from yesterday, anyone seeking to leave the EU with such a sum must fill out a declaration form at the airport detailing the "origin and intended use of cash".

Failure to comply could result in a £5,000 fine.

The 10,000 euro limit applies to the equivalent in any currency and covers any kind of cheques - including travellers' cheques - and bankers' drafts as well as cash being taken out of or into the EU.

Accountants likened the law to a stealthy re-introduction of exchange controls which Margaret Thatcher's administration abolished in 1979.

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They said it was intended to deter last-ditch evasion tactics before the British tax amnesty which ends next Friday, June 22.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) denied that the new legal requirement for some travellers to fill in more forms would add to queues at airports and said the change had been properly publicised.

But a straw poll by The Daily Telegraph yesterday found a national airline spokesman, a senior private banker - whose clients are mostly millionaires - and accountants who said they knew nothing of the new law.

Angela Beech, of accountants Blick Rothenberg, said: "This seems to be coming in through the back door and is going to affect people with second homes outside the EU - for example, in America, Switzerland or Turkey.

"It will also affect pensioners who are taking large sums abroad to enjoy holidays that may last several months.

"Interestingly, the notice on HMRC's website also says they have the right to seize any sum exceeding £1,000 if they suspect it is the proceeds of crime.

"I was certainly not aware of that - it could catch you if you were coming out of the bank to do a deal with a builder."

A spokesman for HMRC said the £1,000 limit was introduced under the Proceeds of Crime Act five years ago.

"People who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear," he said. "We are going to have a light touch about the new requirement.

"We are not after people buying homes overseas, we are after money launderers."

Mike Warburton of accountants Grant Thornton said: "This new law is all about hot money. We have a tax amnesty which ends next week and some people with offshore accounts that will be affected by the EU Savings Directive are no doubt thinking that they might transfer to jurisdictions which are not affected; such as Dubai and Singapore.

"The Government is keen that they should not do so."

I thought if you were out of the UK for more than 6 months you were nolonger entitled to NHS treatment. Assume he is being billed for his treatment here.

I have a Lloyds TSB Visa card and have twice had it refused at atm machines on two seperate trips. What peed me off was that before leaving for Thailand i had phoned the bank and told them i would be making cash withdrawls from atms in Thailand so please, please, please don't put a block on my card. No worries the fellow says, the computer has been updated and you will have no problems. Gets through to the Lloyds TSB fraud department who unblock the card after a few security questions. Naturally i ask why it was blocked when i had told them i would be in Thailand and would be making atm withdrawls. The answer was, it doesn't matter a ###### if you've informed them before hand, if the system thinks they may be fraudulent withdrawls the card gets blocked.

When i arrrived last November, hit immigration about 16.00. The queues were quite long for immigration this time, but they did have a few girls walking up and down the lines checking people had made out their immigration cards and had made made them out properly. Perhaps they have stopped doing it now.

No, I mean the final check where passengers walk through and carry-on bags are x-rayed before you can go down to the gates.

Whoops, i must have missed the smoking room before the security check. Can always pop down to level 2 and use the smoking rooms you used when you first arrived.

Before going to Thailand i duely phone Lloyds TSB and tell them i'll be in Thailand and please not to reject any cash withdrawls. The bank says no problem sir, you wont have any problems while your in Thailand. Every time about the 4th cash withdrawl, my card is refused. Please contact your bank message etc. A quick call to the UK gets its sorted but it is a pain.

I've read quite some on the matter, from that post with the wise *ss that was set to fart next to me if i would smoke in a closed area... huh

As this might upset some pu**ies around here, used to whine about anything they don't like but unable to fight against it otherwise than expressing beautiful philosophical quotes and deep thoughts on the matter here are my 2 cents on it:

- I am a smoker because i enjoy the feeling as much as i enjoy the gestures implied, the nicotine addiction and all the stuff.

- Every day me and my associates are spending around 45 - 50 K baht on various bars and clubs in Patong - Phuket - Kamala, etc which we're not willing to spend anymore if some frustrated punk even tries to tell us whatever we can or can not do ...

- To the wise courageous no-smokers out there - Dudes, if you don't like my smoke get the hel_l out of the place or place your precious lungs at a reasonable distance - remember this : is not me the one having a problem with it, is you ! Again, to show my care for your health, i strongly advise you not to try farting around my noble nose or you'll get surely in the closest hospital with some ribs sticked in your precious lungs... unfortunately that happened 2 times already to some 2 dudes caring too much for the air quality in the room than for them wellness.

The point is this : I am not telling you what to do, i am telling you to leave me alone. You don't like my habits , i don't like anyone tampering with them .. Whoops ! we have a problem , we shall solve it one way or another !

I bet you're caring for your habits or pleasures as i care about mine, please do not *hit on my pleasures! There is plenty of rooms and plenty of space in a room for your healthy lungs to benefit from the clean air without disturbing me and if there's not, i am sure you can find another place where you can enjoy your fresh air intake.

I bet no one is crazy enough to tell to a bunch of former rugby players what they are allowed or not to do.

Have fun guys, live and let live !

Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer - official

By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE world's leading health organisation has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could even have a protective effect.

The astounding results are set to throw wide open the debate on passive smoking health risks. The World Health Organisation, which commissioned the 12-centre, seven-country European study has failed to make the findings public, and has instead produced only a summary of the results in an internal report.

Despite repeated approaches, nobody at the WHO headquarters in Geneva would comment on the findings last week. At its International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, which coordinated the study, a spokesman would say only that the full report had been submitted to a science journal and no publication date had been set.

The findings are certain to be an embarrassment to the WHO, which has spent years and vast sums on anti-smoking and anti-tobacco campaigns. The study is one of the largest ever to look at the link between passive smoking - or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) - and lung cancer, and had been eagerly awaited by medical experts and campaigning groups.

Yet the scientists have found that there was no statistical evidence that passive smoking caused lung cancer. The research compared 650 lung cancer patients with 1,542 healthy people. It looked at people who were married to smokers, worked with smokers, both worked and were married to smokers, and those who grew up with smokers.

The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: "There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood."

A spokesman for Action on Smoking and Health said the findings "seem rather surprising given the evidence from other major reviews on the subject which have shown a clear association between passive smoking and a number of diseases." Roy Castle, the jazz musician and television presenter who died from lung cancer in 1994, claimed that he contracted the disease from years of inhaling smoke while performing in pubs and clubs.

A report published in the British Medical Journal last October was hailed by the anti-tobacco lobby as definitive proof when it claimed that non-smokers living with smokers had a 25 per cent risk of developing lung cancer. But yesterday, Dr Chris Proctor, head of science for BAT Industries, the tobacco group, said the findings had to be taken seriously. "If this study cannot find any statistically valid risk you have to ask if there can be any risk at all.

"It confirms what we and many other scientists have long believed, that while smoking in public may be annoying to some non-smokers, the science does not show that being around a smoker is a lung-cancer risk." The WHO study results come at a time when the British Government has made clear its intention to crack down on smoking in thousands of public places, including bars and restaurants.

The Government's own Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health is also expected to report shortly - possibly in time for this Wednesday's National No Smoking day - on the hazards of passive smoking.

SYNOPSIS AND COMMENTS ON THE WHO-IARC STUDY ON ETS

By Martha Perske and Wanda Hamilton

The WHO study -- one of the largest ever conducted on ETS and lung cancer risk in non-smokers -- was commissioned by WHO and coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The results of the study show no statistically significant association between lung cancer and exposure to ETS in the home, the workplace, vehicles, or public places such as restaurants. The study emphasized that 'Vehicles and public indoor settings did not represent an important source of ETS exposure.' Moreover, the study found a statistically significant DECREASED risk of lung cancer in adulthood for those non-smokers exposed to ETS as children. In simple words, that means there was a PROTECTIVE effect from exposure to ETS during childhood.

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The study was eventually published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (l998;90:1440-50), but only after the London Telegraph (and the London Times) broke a story on the findings of the study and accused WHO of suppressing the information ("Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer--official," by Victoria Macdonald, London Telegraph, 3/8/98). U.K. ASH filed a complaint with the U.K. Press Complaints Commission against the Telegraph, alleging it had misrepresented the results of the WHO study. The Telegraph stuck by its story and by October l998 the Commission found for the Telegraph and rejected ASH's complaint. By then the WHO study had been published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (in early October, l998) and the Telegraph was obviously vindicated.

It appeared to many that WHO did consider suppressing the research altogether, but the London press forced them to publish, and that they even tried to discredit their own study at first, saying it wasn't large enough (though it was only 3 cases short of being the largest ever done).

According to an article by Terence Corcoran at the Globe and Mail ("Ban anti-tobacco activists," March 17, 1998) following the London Telegraph's exposure of the findings, some WHO anti-tobacco workers even tried to deny the very existence of the study: "Neil Collishaw, a former Health Canada statistician who now works the anti-tobacco desk at WHO in Geneva, suggested that the research didn't exist. 'This was certainly nothing done in my office.' Then he added: 'But if my organization...commissioned it, it's strange I haven't heard of it.' Strange indeed, since the WHO study is a well-known project and one of the largest original investigations into second-hand smoke ever undertaken."

However, The Economist is of different opinion (March 14-20, 1998). It says WHO tried to get its findings published in the British Medical Journal in 1997, to no avail.

"...Richard Peto, an epidemiologist at Oxford Univeristy who advises the WHO, says that accusations of a cover-up are nonsense. The WHO tried to get its findings published by the British Medical Journal late last year, but they were rejected on the grounds that the BMJ had just published a much bigger 'meta-analysis' study on passive smoking, collating almost 40 research papers on more than 4,000 cancer patients."

"This larger study came to the conclusion that there was indeed an increased risk of lung cancer from passive smoking (25% higher than for those living in a smoke-free environment), but that it was tiny compared with the 2,000% increased risk for active smokers. The BMJ therefore decided that the WHO's results were not noteworthy enough to print. The WHO says it is still trying to have the study published. It submitted the research to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in February and is waiting for it to be peer-reviewed."

Regardless of how things really unfolded, the WHO did not announce to the world (as an honest entity should have done) that, according to its own study, ETS does not represent a hazard to the non-smoker, which is what this and a myriad of other studies actually demonstrated.