ASH Daily News for 24 July 2008
HEADLINES
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Bloomberg and Gates team up to fight smoking
Smoking ban may cut violent incidents in mental health wards
Grant will help patients with schizophrenia who smoke
Australia: Ending point of sale display ignites tobacco lobby
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Bloomberg and Gates team up to fight smoking
Two of the world’s richest men, with bank balances that rival the gross domestic product of small countries, are joining forces to wage war against a common enemy — the tobacco industry.
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, and Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, are making a combined investment today of $500 million (£250 million) to try to reduce smoking in countries such as China and India and to help to prevent a “tobacco epidemic” in Africa.
The billionaires, through their charities, intend to lobby governments in Asia, Africa and South America to increase taxes on cigarettes, implement smoking bans and raise awareness of health risks.
Nearly five million people worldwide a year — almost 14,000 every day — die from tobacco-related illness. Unless urgent action is taken, they say, as many as one billion people — more than two thirds of these in the developing world — could die this century as a result of smoking.
As rates of smoking have decreased in the developed world, tobacco companies have concentrated their advertising and marketing resources on the developing world.
Many of the companies have argued that they are not trying to addict new smokers but are trying only to convert adults who are smoking inferior local brands. However, the World Health Organisation released a report this year that concluded that the industry was targeting teenagers and women.
One aspect often cited as a reason why many low and middle-income countries have resisted calls to ban advertising is that they enjoy the revenues generated from tobacco taxes.
The Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, which was established in 2005, has to date committed more than $375 million towards projects aimed at reducing passive smoking and helping smokers to give up.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, founded in 2000 by Mr Gates and his wife, and rated as the largest philanthropic organisation of its kind in the world, is now to contribute an additional $125 million over five years.
The Bloomberg Initiative will provide tobacco-control funds to low and middle-income countries through competitive grants. Particular emphasis will be on funding programmes in China, India, Indonesia, Russia and Bangladesh, which together account for about half of the world’s smokers.
Mr Bloomberg said, “When I announced this initiative, I said that I hoped others would step forward. I’m delighted Bill and Melinda Gates are supporting one of the most important public health efforts of our time.”
Mr Gates said: “Tobacco-caused diseases have emerged as one of the greatest health challenges facing developing countries. The good news is, we know what it takes to save millions of lives, and where efforts exist, they are working. We are pleased to join with Mayor Bloomberg, who has made the fight against tobacco a priority in New York City and around the world.”
Source: The Times Online, 24 July 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6rajdv
Smoking ban may cut violent incidents in mental health wards
Researchers from North Staffordshire found that when smoking was restricted at a psychiatric hospital, patients were almost half as violent as they were before.
The team from Harplands Hospital examined all recorded episodes of violence and aggression witnessed by staff. All incidents that had happened a year before the introduction of a smokefree hospital policy in April 2006 were compared with all those that happened a year after.
The hospital had introduced a partial ban so that staff and patients could still smoke in designated areas outside the hospital. From 1 July this year however, the Department of Health has introduced a complete ban on smoking in all English psychiatric hospitals.
Around 1,300 incidents were reported between April 2005 and April 2006. This fell 43% to 738 between April 2006 and April 2007
The research was presented at a Royal College of Psychiatrists conference in London earlier this month.
Source: Nursing Times, 23 July 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6acwht
Grant will help patients with schizophrenia who smoke
A £200,000 grant has been awarded to researchers at Queen's to help establish why people with schizophrenia are three times more likely to smoke than the general population.
It is hoped the Medical Research Council award will help the scientists discover improved treatments for nicotine dependence - which can result in increased rates of illness and death from smoking related diseases - as well as treatments for the symptoms of schizophrenia.
The funding will provide a three-year fellowship for Dr Ruth Barr, a psychiatrist in the School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Dr Barr hopes to build on research she has carried out during a fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts on the effects of nicotine on attention and memory in schizophrenia.
The effects of nicotine withdrawal will be measured on around 40 volunteers, including both those with and without the condition.
Dr Barr said: "The reasons behind the increased need to smoke in patients with schizophrenia are unclear, although certain symptoms of this illness may increase vulnerability to nicotine dependence.
"Schizophrenia is associated with cognitive impairments – including deficits in inhibitory control which may make it more difficult for patients to resist the impulse to smoke.
"We propose to investigate the effects of nicotine and nicotine withdrawal in smokers with and without schizophrenia on response inhibition, measured using a computer task.
"Cognitive abilities are believed to get worse during nicotine withdrawal and we want to establish if this deterioration is greater in patients with schizophrenia.
"In addition, we will investigate the mechanism of nicotine's effects on task performance using brain scanning and a measure of brain electrical activity.
"If we can understand why patients with schizophrenia are more likely to smoke it could enable us to develop new treatments for nicotine dependence and symptoms of schizophrenia."
Source: Eurekalert, 22 July 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6bqda8
Australia: Ending point of sale display ignites tobacco lobby
Big tobacco interests are threatening to split the Iemma cabinet on a proposal to ban cigarette packets from view in shops, with Philip Morris writing to all tobacco retailers to encourage them to lobby the Premier and senior ministers to scuttle the ban.
The Minister Assisting the Health Minister (Cancer), Verity Firth, will take a plan to cabinet in the next fortnight which would see the ban introduced more than four years after it was announced by the previous minister, Frank Sartor.
But cabinet is understood to be split on the proposal, with support from the Treasurer, Michael Costa, and Small Business Minister, Joe Tripodi, questionable.
Representatives from Philip Morris have met Mr Tripodi in an attempt to get his support in cabinet not to proceed with the ban.
A letter from Philip Morris to retailers encourages them to write to the Premier, Mr Tripodi and Ms Firth to get her to drop the proposal.
The letter says: "As a responsible tobacco retailer, you should be aware of and consider the effects such a law would impose on your business and make your views known."
Philip Morris is understood to have made it clear to the Government that one of its main concerns is a loss of market share; it is attempting to wrest the No.1 spot from British American Tobacco.
Ms Firth as minister has taken up the proposal again, with a plan to ban smoking in cars containing children.
Philip Morris has approached several ministers for meetings. The company claims it is in favour of reducing the size of its displays in shops but opposes a total ban.
Imperial Tobacco is understood to have joined the fight against Ms Firth, launching freedom-of-information requests with NSW Health for correspondence between Ms Firth, the cancer institute and anti-smoking groups in a bid to gain ammunition for the tobacco case.
The Heart Foundation is understood to have sent a letter from its chief executive, Tony Thirlwell, to ministers arguing that of all the recent proposals by the Government to counter smoking, the decision concerning removing cigarette packets from display is the most important.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 July 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/65zaw3
