HEADLINES

• Northern Ireland: Tobacco display ban set for spring
• Taxpayer film subsidies promote youth smoking
• The ethics of pension fund investments
• Tobacco companies use corporate responsibility for political purposes
• Smoking in pregnancy linked to persistent asthma in children
• Tributes paid to Leytonstone actor
• India: Indian 'superhero' actor ill with cancer

• Northern Ireland: Tobacco display ban set for spring

  Health minister Edwin Poots announced that a ban on displaying cigarettes in shops will not begin until next spring at the earliest, and that he will be introducing regulations to implement the ban as soon as possible.  The ban was originally planned to take effect from October this year.

  Mr Poots also announced that a ban on sale of tobacco from vending machines will take effect from 1 February next year.
   

  Source: Belfast Telegraph, 23 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/qIET5N

• Taxpayer film subsidies promote youth smoking

  State governments, including California and governments in the UK and Canada pour hundreds of millions of taxpayer pounds and dollars into major motion pictures that depict smoking, according to research by the University of California, San Francisco.

  According to a survey published in PLoS Medicine, those movies promote youth smoking and undermine tobacco control efforts, leading to thousands of new teen smokers every year.

   

  In 2010, 93 percent of films with smoking were rated appropriate for youth in the UK.

   

  The PLoS Medicine article can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/p2XVRA
  Source: Science Daily, 23 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/n2Zn7B

• The ethics of pension fund investments

  In an opinion piece, business correspondent David Prosser discusses the ethics of investing in tobacco companies.

  "Kent County Council has got itself into something of a pickle ... over pension fund investments in four international tobacco companies with a total value of £25m.

  "Kent says that it has a legal duty to generate the best possible returns for scheme members, which prevent it ruling out investing in particular types of company.

   

  "In fact, that's not right at all. For while safeguarding the interests of members is the overriding duty of the trustees of any pension scheme,  that does not mean returns are the only consideration.

   

  "The issue schemes such as Kent have to confront is what their members think. Too many schemes don't make enough information public about their investments, which deprives members of the opportunity to make their feelings known.

   

  "Apart from anything else, isn't it rather odd to be investing in an industry at the same time as spending money on campaigns that could damage it financially?  By accepting the pension fund's investment decisions, Kent is effectively saying its own public-health campaigns are going to prove ineffective."
  Source: The Independent, 24 August 2011
  Link: http://ind.pn/qM2gum

• Tobacco companies use corporate responsibility for political purposes

  Tobacco companies may be using corporate social responsibility programmes to gain access to politicians, influence agendas, and shape public health policy to best suit their own interests according to an article in PLoS Medicine by Gary Fooks from the University of Bath's Tobacco Control Research Group.  

  In a detailed case study of publicly available British American Tobacco documents, the authors illustrate how the company used its corporate social responsibility programme in its dialogue with policy-makers to influence the priorities of public and elected officials in the UK.

  
  The authors argue that their findings underline the need for broad implementation of Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which aims to protect public-health policies on tobacco control from tobacco industry influence.
   
  Source: Medical Xpress, 23 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/o0ps0e

• Smoking in pregnancy linked to persistent asthma in children

  Children with severe asthma are 3.6 times more likely to have been exposed to tobacco smoking before birth according to a study led by researchers at University of California, San Francisco.

  The prenatal exposure also was associated with three times the number of daily and night time asthma symptoms later in the child's life, as well as nearly four times the number of asthma-related emergency room visits, even when the researchers controlled for other risk factors, such as current tobacco exposure.

  
  The prenatal impact far outweighed the role of exposure to cigarette smoke during the first two years of life, or current exposure to smoke, the study found.
  Source: Medical News Today, 23 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/obqMhN

• Tributes paid to Leytonstone actor

  Tributes have been paid to Leytonstone actor Noel Collins, who has died at the age of 74 after a long battle with lung cancer.

  Collins was best known for his leading role as Sergeant George Parrish in 1980s police drama series Juliet Bravo and appeared on numerous TV shows including Doctor Who and Play For Today until he retired at the age of 60 after being diagnosed with cancer.

   

  His changed attitudes to smoking led to him joining a £17million lawsuit in the 1990s with 52 other claimants against cigarette giants Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco, claiming that the companies had been negligent in not reducing the tar content in their cigarettes.
  Source: Leytonstone Guardian, 19 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/mWstjs

• India: Indian 'superhero' actor ill with cancer

  Actor Sheikh Shariq who starred in a spoof film, Ye Hai Malegaon Ka Superman, about an Indian superhero who saves his town from a tobacco-loving villain, is himself suffering from mouth cancer caused by his tobacco habit.

   

  "He made the film about the after-effects of tobacco, but now he is suffering because of that very habit. We kept telling him not to, but he didn't listen," said Shaikh Nasir, the film's director.

  Shaikh says the reason he wants to screen the movie in his home town is because he wants to drive home the point about tobacco. "So many people eat tobacco in my village. I hope they realise now what a bad idea it is," said Shaikh.

  Sheik Shariq, aged just 25, is married with two daughters and is part of the Malegaon film industry, which produces low-budget, spoof movies set in the industrial town of Malegaon.
  Source: Reuters, 19 August 2011
  Link: http://reut.rs/o9jE2I