ASH Daily News for 28/11/2003

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ASH Daily News

28 November 2003

HEADLINES

Tobacco smuggling - smoke and mirrors
GPs 'overestimating' heart risks
French Senate trim taxes

FULL TEXT

Tobacco smuggling - smoke and mirrors

The Private Eye asks: "What has happened to the government's
investigation into tobacco smuggling?"

More than three years ago Stephen Byers, then trade and industry
secretary announced an inquiry into allegations that British American
Tobacco (BAT) is, or was, involved in smuggling tobacco.

The findings were expected last year but have still not been published.
One matter the report may not investigate too closely is the constantly
spinning revolving door between the DTI and BAT and used by DTI
officials and BAT executives.

The revolving doors work both ways. In 2001 Mark Jennings, former
president of BAT's operations in south-east Asia, was "seconded" to the
export promotions department of the DTI. He held that job all through
2001 as the government department to which he was "seconded" was
investigating the firm which employed him. Asked why it took on Mr
Jennings while his firm was being investigated, a DTI spokesman said:
"Secondees provide valuable experience to the work of the DTI. It is
made clear in the terms of the secondment that there should be no
conflicts of interest between work for the department and for an
employer."

Full Private Eye story:
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/smuggling/pdfs/pe031128.pdf



GPs 'overestimating' heart risks

GPs overestimate the risk of heart disease in men by about half because
they are expected to use outdated methods to calculating the risk,
according to a study.

This might mean patients are put on treatments that cause unnecessary
side-effects and anxiety, affect their insurance premiums, waste
doctors' time supervising patients, and drain NHS drug budgets.

The methods used are based on data collected between 1968 and 1974 from
Framing ham, a town in Massachusetts. They identify risk factors
including age, blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking and diabetes, but
their relevance to a British population is seriously questioned by the
team, led by Peter Brindle, a Bristol University researcher and GP.

Full Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1095029,00.html
Source: The Guardian , The Times, Financial Times, 28 November 2003



French Senate trim taxes

Under pressure from protesting cigarette vendors, France's Senate voted
Thursday to partially roll back a tax increase on tobacco scheduled for
January.

The measure, which still requires the approval of the lower house of
Parliament to become law, would cut the planned 20 percent increase to
between 8 percent and 10 percent.

The senators were "thinking about the tobacco vendors, about the
residents of rural areas where the smoke shops play an important role,"
Senator Philippe Marini told RTL radio.

The tax increase is part of the government's highly publicized campaign
against cigarettes, which has toughened laws against underage smoking
and limited smoking in public places.

So far this year, tax hikes on tobacco have increased the average price
per cigarette pack to E4.60, or $5.40 from E3.90, or $4.60, raising the
ire of cigarette vendors.


Source: Associated Press, 28 November 2003
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