The medical director of the clinic finds it hard to conceal the wonder in his voice as he points to all the state of the art equipment surrounding him. You wont see anything like this in the whole of the country, says Bella Nemeth, gesturing at a giant scanning machine that takes up half the room. A pair of feet stick out of a metal tube running into the machine, which whirs and clicks. A few moments later a ghostly black and white cross section of a human body lights up on a nearby computer screen. We can see everything that is wrong with this woman just by looking at this picture. As this is Hungary the chances are that whatever is wrong with this woman is down to cigarettes. The country is in the middle of a public health crisis as decades of furious tobacco consumption mature into a fullblown epidemic of smoking related deaths, currently running at an average of 35,000 a year. Hungarians are third in the world league of smokers, behind the Russians and Poles, and the legacy of their love affair with tobacco is a full waiting room in Mr Nemeths diagnostic clinic in the picturesque town of Pecs. A brass plaque bolted next to the entrance proudly proclaims that the clinic is sponsored by British American Tobacco.

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