DeLand, Florida— Avail Clinical Research, a privately owned research facility, founded in 1988 in DeLand, Florida, announces the launch of several research studies to test investigational treatment options for those ready and able to recieve treatment for Smoking Cessation. The research studies of investigational treatment to test smoking cessation therapies are being developed by pharmaceutical and biotechnical companies, and they are designed specifically to test the safety and efficacy of treatments for humans. By volunteering for our fully supervised smoking cessation research study, you may receive new investigational smoking cessation treatments that may help us all understand your condition.

The type of study being performed by Avail Clinical Research directly reflects your involvement. Sometimes, participating in a research study is as simple as agreeing to let our researchers have a copy of your test results, but most are more involved and would require some tests and a visit to our clinic. Participants are compensated for time and travel, and the study related care, including physical examinations, laboratory services and study medicines are all provided.

The research studies will enroll those already diagnosed with smoking cessation. Avail Clinical Research will take volunteers who:

- have a really strong desire to quit smoking (study is a year long and comes with counseling to help people quit permanently)
- willing to use a tobacco alternative (study offers a random selection of SNUS or lozenges as the tobacco alternative)
- are 21 or older
- currently smoke more than 10 cigarettes a day
- are not obese
- do not have any of the following: Diabetes, HIV, Hep B, Hep C

Avail Clinical Research conducts clinical trials for diabetes, COPD, gout, OsteoArthritis and other conditions. Located in DeLand, Florida, near Orlando and Daytona Beach. Participation can include medical care.

VIA

Breath Of Life Is What It’s All About: Smoking Cessation

October 29th, 2010 | Author: Katelyn Harding

I interviewed Jim Steele on October 18th, coincidentally his birthday, and a year ago to the day that he quit smoking.

“I stopped smoking for no other reason than there was something wrong with me. And then in November [of 2009] I was diagnosed with Stage 3 COPD, and my world just kind of fell out from underneath me,” Steele says. “I’m a man, and if something’s hurting me I can grab a hold of it and make it stop, but I couldn’t do anything about this. I realized that breath of life was really what it was all about.”

Steele, who lives in Portland, Oregon, recalls feeling scared upon hearing his diagnosis, because he felt helpless.

“I’m a big person and I was scared. I smoked for over 40 years. And when I quit, I was still at two packs a day,” he says. “I made the decision, smoke or breathe. And I want to breathe.”

Quitting cold turkey worked for Steele, but only after spending time and money on hypnosis and other methods.

Debra and Jim

“My logic at that point was that I’d have a cigarette to calm my nerves. On my first mission trip to Africa 2007 I signed a contract saying I couldn’t smoke, so I was able to quit for three months,” he says. “When life wasn’t going perfect, to calm my nerves I started smoking again. But on the day that I quit, I still remember thinking, ‘This is it. I’m done.’ This time I really meant it.”

When he was first diagnosed, Steele says he did not know what COPD was.

“I knew what emphysema was, and I just thought, ‘This isn’t happening to me.’ And it did, and I was really scared. There’s no other word,” he says. “Now, when people are first diagnosed I can feel exactly in my heart what that was like.”

Since his diagnosis, Steele says he’s educated himself about COPD, by reading everything he can about it, and making friends with other COPDers.

October 13th of this year he was put on oxygen, and says “it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Since I was diagnosed with COPD, what I do in a day was what I used to do when I got home from work. [Things like] mowing the yard, cleaning the pool,” he says. “I got to where just taking a shower I was in bad shape. I’d have to sit down and get my breath.”

Since his diagnosis, Steele says he’s gained around 60 pounds, because he hasn’t been able to exercise. Now, with his oxygen, he’s beginning to walk more and more every day.

“I’m getting my life back and I’ve just been on oxygen for five days. I realize that if I can get the weight off me, it will help my breathing a lot, too,” he says. “In fact, I was told when I was first diagnosed they didn’t think I had a year left. And I have surpassed that and want to go as long as I can.”

Steele and his wife, Debra, both did mission work in Uganda, where he was a painting contractor. He says it was a life-changing experience; to work with children who grew up with nothing, yet able to be happy. Debra works helping children in need for Food for the Hungry. Before that she worked in the banking business.

“I worked hard all my life and seeing her going off to work and me just sitting around, it ate a big hole in me, because I realized there was nothing I could do about it,” he says. “Now, my days are a lot more positive.”

Steele says “being able to keep going” keeps him motivated, as well as groups such as COPD-International, and of course his friends and family.

“This is a life-changing deal, and you have to live completely different,” he says. “If you don’t have support you’re alone. And I was there. COPD affects us all differently.”

Via

Spreading COPD Awareness and a Plan for Smoking Cessation

September 10th, 2010 | Author: Katelyn Harding

Cletus Chi has seen his share of COPD in his home country of Cameroon, due to poor cooking conditions and other environmental factors.

Now, living and working in Raleigh, NC, he wonders what can be done to prevent young people from smoking and getting COPD.

“What about the young ones? Many of them are diving into cigarette smoking. What can we do to persuade them that cigarettes are a bad habit?” he says. “What is happening here [in the US] is happening there [Cameroon], too.

“Where I grew up, I never really understood what COPD was all about. Obviously people smoked, worked in quarries and factories and were exposed to a host of factors that also contributed to COPD, but I never knew what was happening until I got here,” he says. “I became a respiratory therapist and was exposed to patients that are victims of this disease. I have learned about the causes of this disease and have been providing care to a lot of patients.”

Cletus Chi

Chi worked as Respiratory Care Practitioner with Duke University, Durham Regional Hospital and currently works in the respiratory department at the Blue Ridge Health Care Center in Raleigh.

Having seen a lot of COPDers and the numerous diseases associated with it, Chi says we have to be more aggressive in helping minors quit smoking.

“We have to convince the younger generation [to stop smoking], if there must be hope for the future of our country,” he says.

He says that three packs of cigarettes cost around $5 each, and multiply that by 50 years equals $273,750; a lot of money that could be better spent.

Chi’s an advocate for COPD and one of his challenges is effectively reaching out to the media and schools to tell them about the harmful effects of smoking.

“I was a participant at the Virginia Society for Respiratory Care: Central District Capital City Symposium on COPD in September of last year. When we went out for a break, we saw tons and tons of students smoking in turns. That really troubled me, because they were the young people who are supposed to be this nation’s future builders,” he says. “I ask myself, ‘How can we better address the problem of cigarette smoking? How can we educate people? How can we make this message more convincing and acceptable?’”

A Chi has is to create a better strategy of communication to disseminate information on smoking, and help especially young people understand the harm of smoking. He proposed that documentaries could be distributed to schools, along with visual aids demonstrating the hazards of cigarette smoking.

“The US Department of Health and Human Services again has reinforced guidelines which will make it tougher for kids to have access to tobacco or tobacco advertising. We need guidelines to lower or eradicate tobacco use in our high schools even against the dilemma of ‘free will’,” he says.

“The FDA’s current statistics show that on a daily basis, 4,000 kids will try their first cigarette before the age of 18. Out of those, 1,000 will become regular smokers. Something can be done to stop this, and it must be done aggressively,” he says.

Chi says anything that can be done to help people of any age to quit smoking can go an extra mile on this journey.

“I am advocating for an ‘International No-Smoking Day.’ This will be a day to reflect on the advantages and demerits of the habit. How did it start, how much could have been spent, what harm could have been done, what will be left behind,” he says. “From this, new resolutions can be adopted, forums can be created and many can be helped to quit smoking through the testimonies of others.”

In Cameroon, Chi says there is no awareness of COPD.

“Where I come from there is little or no information about COPD, no knowledge to teach about the dangers of smoking, which are my worries and concerns,” he says.

He lived with his grandmother for a long time, and says sometimes when he woke up in the morning his nose and fingers were dark because of the smoke from the kitchen’s stove “the fire-side.”

He worked for years as a stone-cutter, quitting his job to raise money to pay for his education. His father still works in that business and goes into “crisis” once a year with a persistent cough, loss of voice, shortness of breath, etc.

Chi says he’d like to try and get educational material to his home country to help develop a plan to help. He suggests beginning with a questionnaire.

“What I’ve been thinking is to ask basic questions, ‘Do you smoke? How many cigarettes do you smoke? Do you know what COPD is?’” he says. “This will get some information on COPD.”

His goal is to get feedback from people and ask them if they’ve been tested for COPD, to give him a basis on what he can do.

“We have to spare no effort to shape tomorrow’s generation,” Chi says.

Electronic cigarettes (or e-cigarettes) have created quite the stir in the smoking cessation market; its popularity has skyrocketed meanwhile the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the manufacturers engage in a heated discussion about their regulation.

In September of last year, the FDA announced its intention to regulate the sale of e-cigarettes stating that it’s a “medical delivery device” that needs more clinical trials to confirm its safety and receive FDA approval. Under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, medical delivery devices require clinical testing for FDA approval of the product. The FDA’s concern stems from the actions of some e-cigarette manufacturers; according to the FDA website some products labeled as not containing nicotine indeed do. They also feel that further testing will determine if in fact the e-cigarette helps in smoking cessation, as some of the companies claim.

Just last week, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the FDA doesn’t have the authority to regulate e-cigarettes as medical delivery devices. Instead, the Court stated that the FDA can regulate e-cigarettes as a tobacco product.

Several organizations have opinioned in the process, including the Legacy Foundation, which suggests that e-cigs should be taken off the market until further studies confirm they’re safe . Legacy issued a statement saying they were “disappointed” in the court’s decision.

According to Dr. Byron Thomashow, Medical Director at the Center for Chest Disease at the New York Presbyterian Hospital and chairman of the COPD Foundation, most e-cigarettes still use nicotine (which is addictive) and the manufacturers apparently have repeatedly refused to undergo clinical trials suggested by both the FDA and World Health Organization.

The FDA is currently evaluating its next steps.

For quick reference, visit the Legacy Foundation’s fact sheet on e-cigarettes.