PUBLIC health chiefs at Bradford Council are highlighting 16 cancers linked to smoking as part of a new hard-hitting campaign aimed at convincing people to kick the habit.

The authority's statistics show that 39 people in the Bradford district discover they have cancer caused by smoking every month, with another 28 dying due to smoking-related forms of the disease.

Quit16 emphasises the 16 cancers associated with smoking and is the first region-wide anti-smoking campaign that includes advertising on television and online by local tobacco control alliances, collaborating as Breathe 2025, and supported by Cancer Research UK.

According to figures from 2013, Yorkshire and the Humber has the highest adult smoking rate in the country at 20 per cent, with smoking said to cost the region £1.5 billion a year in NHS and care costs.

In Bradford, there were 465 new cancer cases attributed to smoking, with 335 deaths in 2013.

The campaign highlights that while most smokers know about the link between smoking and lung cancer, many do not realise that smoking is linked with 16 other cancers, including cancers of the mouth, nasal cavities, pharynx and larynx, stomach, kidney, bowel, liver, pancreas, ureter, oesophagus, cervix, bladder, ovaries, and myeloid leukaemia.

Joanne Nykol, tobacco lead for Bradford Council, said: "The messages are brutally honest, there are 16 cancers caused by smoking.

"Some will kill you quickly, others more slowly, and it’s you and your family that have to live through it.

"Stopping smoking is the best thing you can do to reduce the risk that one of those deaths will be you."

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Councillor Ralph Berry, portfolio holder for health and social care at Bradford Council, added: "We want to make sure the next generation of children born and brought up in the district never start smoking and grow up free of the terrible health harms associated with tobacco.

"If you smoke, trying to quit is a great way to help make that happen and helps us achieve our aim of helping people live better and healthier lives."

But Simon Cooke, leader of the council's Conservative Group, questioned the effectiveness of the campaign and said it was time for the authority to become "vaping-friendly".

He said: "Smokers are well aware of the negative health impacts of their habit, but most continue to smoke.

"We need to question whether the expensive funding of smoking cessation services by Councils meet the objectives of reducing numbers of smokers.

"The biggest impact on these quit-resistant smokers is the option to stop or reduce tobacco use through vaping.

"It is disappointing that the cCouncil and other agencies continue to adopt a 'not invented here' stance to what is now the best chance of getting the remaining smokers to quit.

"It is time for a sensible review of the anti-smoking strategy, for the Council to become vaping-friendly, and for us to recognise that promotion of vaping will be far more effective than telling smokers what they already know."

For more details on the campaign, which runs throughout February, visit QUIT16.co.uk