Employee Benefit Programs in U.S. Increase Coverage of Smoking Cessation Programs
Nymox (NASDAQ: NYMX) NicAlert™ Product Valuable Tool for Smoking Cessation Programs
MAYWOOD, NJ (July 3, 2003)Coverage for smoking cessation programs is part of comprehensive cancer screening and prevention programs agreed to by the CEOs of several dozen major corporations. The programs will extend the benefit of smoking cessation programs to 8 million employees and 17 million dependents. Smoking cessation programs have been traditionally excluded from such employee benefit programs.
Nymox's NicAlert™ product is a valuable aid for smoking cessation programs. NicAlert can accurately and quickly determine a person's level of tobacco use and exposure on-site without the need for instruments or special training. NicAlert received clearance from the U.S. FDA in October 2002.
Quitting smoking also significantly reduces mortality risk for patients with coronary heart disease according to a review article published in the most recent issue of the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA July 2, 2003; 290:86-97). The authors found that studies consistently showed that patients with heart disease who stopped smoking had a considerably lower risk of heart disease. They also noted the tendency of some patients with heart disease to falsely claim cessation.
NicAlert™ was recently adopted by the American Respiratory Alliance for use as its official test agents in some of its smoking cessation programs. NicAlert™ has been successfully used in anti-smoking campaigns in Switzerland and smoking cessation programs in the United States. A European study recently successfully used NicAlert™ as an adjunct to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in a four month study to be presented the 12th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Helsinki August 3-8, 2003.
Two recent independent peer-reviewed studies found the technology employed in NicAlert™ to be an accurate, rapid and cost-effective means of confirming smoking status. One study, "Validating a Dipstick Method for Detecting Recent Smoking," Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (2002; 11: 1123-1125) was authored by Peter Gariti of the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center Group, Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, David I. Rosenthal of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Kathleen Lindell of the University of Pittsburgh and John Hansen-Flaschen, Joseph Shrager, Craig Lipkin, Arthur I. Alterman and Lawrence R. Kaiser of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study examined the smoking status of patients at a cancer clinic and found that the results obtained using Nymox's tobacco product exposure test had an "excellent agreement" with state-of-the-art sophisticated laboratory measurements but at a substantially lower cost (over 90% less). The second study, "The Accuracy of Self-Reported Smoking Status Assessed by Cotinine Test Strips," Nicotine & Tobacco Research (2002; 4: 305-9) was authored by Donna R. Parker, ScD, and Thomas M. Lasater, PhD, Brown University School of Medicine; Richard Windsor, PhD, MPH, George Washington University Medical Center; Jeff Wilkins, MD, Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, David Upegui, BA, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island; and James Heimdal, PhD, The Hoffman Heart Institute, Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Hartford, CT. The study found Nymox's product to be "an inexpensive and rapid method to routinely biochemically confirm smoking status at a clinical visit." The authors described the Nymox product as a "simple, inexpensive and rapid measure to immediately confirm smoking status in field settings."
The U.S. Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and many other public health organizations have targeted tobacco use as the single most preventable cause of premature death today. The CDC estimates that smoking causes over 440,000 premature deaths annually in the United States and creates an economic loss of over $150 billion a year.
More information about Nymox is available at www.nymox.com, email: info@nymox.com, or 800-936-9669.
This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" as defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and the actual results and future events could differ materially from management's current expectations. Such factors are detailed from time to time in Nymox's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities.
