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ASH Daily News

11 December 2003

HEADLINES

Solicitor to be quizzed in tobacco lawsuit
Smoking, cot death and overturned
Test for a smokers puff strength
Soccer clubs handed smoking weapon
Letters
Smoking etiquette


FULL TEXT


Solicitor to be quizzed in tobacco lawsuit

A senior London-based solicitor was yesterday ordered to answer questions from the US Justice Department over the advice he gave on document destruction policies at British American Tobacco.

The US government has been seeking to examine Andrew Foyle, a partner at Lovells law firm, as well as Martin Broughton, BAT's chairman, as part of its $289bn (£172bn) lawsuit against the tobacco industry.

The US authorities are alleging that from 1953 onwards tobacco companies deceived and defrauded the US public about the health risks of smoking. Two BAT subsidiaries are among the defendants.

Full FT coverage:
http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=031211001411
Source: Financial Times, 11 December 2003



Smoking, cot death and overturned

Angela Canning was freed yesterday after a court ruled that her conviction for smothering two of her baby boys were unsafe.

The Court of Appeal heard that Angela Canning's sons were laid to sleep on their fronts and that they may have been exposed to cigarette smokes, putting them at increased risk of cot death.

Mrs Cannings was charged with the murders of Gemma, Jason and Matthew the next day. Although the charge of murdering Gemma was dropped before the trial due to lack of evidence, the jury were given details of her death and told to regard it as "background". And this was the crux of the case against Mrs Cannings. She had fallen victim to the discredited theory of Professor Sir Roy Meadow, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics, who was once regarded as a world expert on cot death.

Mrs Cannings' appeal was fast-tracked as it became clear that her conviction was based on the evidence of Professor Meadow. Another cot death expert, Professor Robert Carpenter, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, reviewed the latest information on SIDS, and assessed Professor Meadow's evidence.

Independent coverage:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=472166
Why tobacco raises cot death risk (BBC Online 2002):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2583397.stm



Test for a smokers puff strength

A new test on cigarette butts may help to assess how variations in puffing habits influence smokers' intake of cancer-causing chemicals.

"It's important to find out what levels of harmful chemicals people are taking into their bodies," says Clifford Watson of the National Center for Environmental Health in Atlanta, Georgia, who developed the test. Cigarette manufacturers use a suction machine to assess tar and nicotine levels. The device takes one small puff of a lit cigarette every minute and catches nicotine and tar in a fibre filter.

But human smokers take bigger, more frequent puffs, says Martin Jarvis of University College London, who studies tobacco dependence. "The machine test is fundamentally misleading," he says - it may underestimate carcinogen intake.

Full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/dispatch/story/0,12978,1103960,00.html
Source: The Guardian, 11 December 2003



Soccer clubs handed smoking weapon

Uefa, the European game's governing body, has announced that cigarettes are to be banned from the touchline.

The decision will not trouble football bosses here as they do not smoke in the dug-out. However, it is likely to shred the nerves of their continental rivals.

Full article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-927201,00.html
Source: The Times, 11 December 2003



Letters

The Times publishes letters sent in to debate@thetimes.co.uk on the subject of Lancet's proposal for a ban on tobacco:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-210-927530,00.html

Stan Shatenstein, contributing editor of Tobacco Control, writes to the Independent on its editorial on the Lancet's call for a ban on tobacco. The Independent had rejected the call as illiberal but had gone on to dismiss calls for a ban on smoking in public places. Stan puts things in perspective:
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/publicplaces/pdfs/indlet031211.pdf



Smoking etiquette

Penny Wark in the Times writes on smoking, smoking bans, smoking smells, and smoking etiquette.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-7-926607,00.html


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