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ASH Daily News for 08 December 2006

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ASH Daily News
 
8 December 2006
 
HEADLINES
 
Accusations that Sir Richard Doll was influenced chemical money
 
German government blocks nationwide smoking ban
 
Belfast streets awash with cigarette butts
 
Smokers have more knee pain and loss of cartilage
 
The fate of ventilation machines in Ohio
 
FULL TEXT
 
Accusations that Sir Richard Doll was influenced chemical money
 
Subscribers may have heard reports about Sir Richard Doll and connections with the pharmaceutical chemical company.
 
Yesterday his long-time collaborator, the eminent epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto, said such allegations were a deliberate attempt to tarnish the reputation of “far and away the best cancer epidemiologist in the world for a long time.”
 
 “I think he was pretty open about consulting for Monsanto and other groups,” said Sir Richard Peto. “He did certainly believe that it was appropriate to work with industry and try to get them to monitor their workforces.”
 
Several decades ago, scientists and publishers were not as concerned as they are now over sources of funding. Most of the fees that Doll received, however, went to Green College in Oxford, which he founded.
 
Peto said: “He was very interested in Green College - he gave them hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years. He also gave money to the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture.”
 
Source: Guardian 8 December 2006
Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/yl8e84
Further interview by Sir Richard Peto on the Today Show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today5_peto_20061208.ram  (real player needed to listen to interview).
 
 
German government blocks nationwide smoking ban
 
The German government has blocked plans to introduce a nationwide ban on smoking in public places
 
A proposal by a government working group which would have banned smoking in all public service buildings, hospitals, restaurants and on public transport will be greatly scaled back, it has been said.
 
Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet will propose next week that only ministries and administration buildings of the federal government should be covered by a smoking ban.
 
Under the reduced proposal, the regional authorities of Germany's 16 states will be asked to implement bans state by state covering other public places, although the federal government will only make recommendations, which are not binding.
 
The report said that the interior and justice ministries feared a nationwide ban would contravene the constitution.
 
Source: Selftrade AFX news 7 December 2006
Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/yfhf35
 
 
Belfast streets awash with cigarette butts
 
Smokers are littering Belfast's streets with more than 50,000 butts every week, the city council has said.
 
Despite the threat of a £50 fine, butts are being thrown away and make up at least 70% of all street litter.  In an effort to clean up, the council has appealed to businesses to operate a “No butts - not on my doorstep” policy.
 
“We are confident that when companies see the extent of this problem, literally on their own door step, they will take steps to ensure that their staff act responsibly and make arrangements for the disposal of their cigarette butts,” said Peter O'Reilly, chairman of Brighter Belfast.
 
Dave Pennick, President of Belfast Chamber of Commerce said: “I am disappointed that businesses and the private and public sector continue to allow their staff to smoke cigarettes at the entrance to their premises.” He said the result was “unprofessional” and the litter was an eyesore.
 
A smokers huddled in a doorway near the city centre said “I have already been fined for throwing a cigarette butt from my car window.”
 
Vivienne Donnelly, enforcement manager with Belfast City Council, said “The majority of our fixed penalties are for cigarette butts. We issued about 1,000 fixed penalties for them. There is a public perception that a butt isn't litter and that it is such a small thing.”
 
Ms Donnelly said that cigarette butts were not biodegradeable. She said the council was appealing to business people to act responsibly.
 
Source: BBC News 7 December 2006
Link to article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6218742.stm
 
 
Smokers have more knee pain and loss of cartilage
 
Osteoarthritis of the knee is more painful and more damaging in smokers, a study has found.  Around a million people suffer from osteoarthritis in the UK - a condition causing inflammation and loss of cartilage in the joints.
 
Researchers followed 159 men with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee for 30 months.  Overall, 12% of the participants were current smokers.
 
MRI scans of the knee showed that the smokers had a more than two-fold increased risk of loss of cartilage in the knee joint - a process that occurs as the disease progresses.
 
The greater amount of pain was unlikely to be due to increased cartilage loss as cartilage does not have pain fibres.
 
Study author Professor David Felson, professor of medicine at Boston University Medical School said “There is data elsewhere that shows smokers feel more pain. It's not unique to knees, there's a strong relationship with smoking and worse back pain.
 
“My guess is it's a general increase in musculoskeletal pain and that something in cigarette smoke sensitises people to lower pain thresholds,” he said.
 
“It's an additional reason to stop smoking as it may lessen the pain and rate of cartilage loss,” he added.
 
Source: BBC News & December 2006
Link to article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6214218.stm
 
 
The fate of ventilation machines in Ohio
 
Ohio's smoking ban starts today. The Cincinnati Enquirer looks at United Air Specialists Inc.
 
United Air Specialists was founded in 1966 by Durk Rorie and Bill Cheney, who began by selling electrostatic air cleaners door-to-door. Sales really took off when they hit upon bowling alleys as the ideal target market.
 
“Bowling centres were very smoky places. The solution in those days was to blow part of the air outside” Rorie told The Enquirer in an early interview.
 
Then came Smokeeters and before long these were popping up in bars, bowling alleys, restaurants and offices across the country.  They work by filtering the air to catch large particles and applying a positive charge to the remaining particulate matter, which then passes through a collector cell. The positively charged particles stick to negatively charged collector plates, leaving the air to be passed through a charcoal filter to remove odours and be re-circulated.
 
Paradoxically, the same anti-smoking sentiment that boosted Smokeeter sales in the past - especially as the health threats posed by secondhand smoke became a serious concern - is now hurting sales as more states and localities prohibit smoking in enclosed public places. As ventilation only catches large particles of tobacco smoke and also re-circulates the air, it is not effective at removing the toxins from the air and thus not a viable solution to providing smokefree environments.
 
So what are all the bars and bowling alleys around Ohio to do with their Smokeeters now that no one's allowed to smoke in them anymore?
 
“Keep 'em running,” Lisa Wilhelmus, the marketing manager, said. “When you turn something like that off, the dust that accumulates, you can't imagine.”
 
Source: Cincinnati – The Enquirer 7 December 2006
Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/ya5zly   


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