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ASH Daily News

18 November 2003

HEADLINES

Imperial expansion into China and Turkey
Tobacco farmers set to lose subsidies
Scanner shortage hits lung cancer treatment
Women and COPD
Health inequalities: North-East spending £100m pa on smoking related diseases
Smoke alarm: skin ages faster when you smoke
Spa centre bans smoking
250,000 cigarettes seized at airport

FULL TEXT

Imperial expansion into China and Turkey

Imperial Tobacco, maker of Lambert & Butler, Embassy and John Player Special cigarettes, is making a determined drive into China and Turkey as it defends itself in Britain against a groundbreaking legal challenge.

Reporting a 40% increase in annual profits, the world's fourth largest tobacco group said it had signed a 10-year deal with a Chinese firm to launch its West brand in that country. It also announced plans to build a new cigarette factory near Izmir in Turkey, having shunned the bidding process when the Turkish Tekel tobacco business was prepared for privatisation.

Last week chief executive Gareth Davis was in the Edinburgh law courts insisting the statistics linking smoking and cancer did not prove a chemical causal link.

The case of McTear v Imperial has been brought in Edinburgh by the wife of a smoker who died of cancer and, if successful, could have huge implications for the tobacco industry. "We believe we have robust defences and it's in the hands of the courts," Mr Davis repeated yesterday as he announced adjusted pre-tax profits of £898m, above analyst forecasts.

Full Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1087478,00.html
Source: The Guardian, Financial Times, The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, 18 November 2003



Tobacco farmers set to lose subsidies

Tens of thousands of jobs in rural parts of southern Europe are at risk as the European Commission prepares to remove subsidies paid to tobacco growers.

The subsidy cuts are expected to be announced this week as part of the Commission's efforts to phase out the industry and to help reduce smoking in Europe.

Farmers sell their tobacco for about 4.5 euros. Subsidies make up about 3 euros of that. Without subsidies, many farmers will face an uncertain future.

"If I cant grow tobacco I will have to change jobs," said Dordogne tobacco farmer Jean-Luc Catinel, "It is the end for small farms like mine."

In Dordogne, there are tobacco farms every few kilometres. Everywhere, there are tobacco leaves hanging to dry. Farmers have been growing tobacco in this region since the seventeenth century.

If the European Commission pushes ahead with its reforms, tobacco farming could disappear from southern France within a decade, farmers here fear.

"I don't know what else I can do instead," said Mr Catinel, "We are going to fight until the end to get the European Commission to change its mind."

Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3257089.stm
Source: BBC Online, 17 November 2003



Scanner shortage hits lung cancer treatment

At least 5,000 patients with lung cancer are having futile surgery or being denied life-saving operations each year because of a shortage of scanners that can show how far the cancer has spread.

Specialists say that about 10,000 patients - a quarter of the 38,000 diagnosed each year - could benefit from the hi-tech machines, known as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners. But the NHS has only five in use - all in London, and serving about 5,000 patients.

A group of cancer charities launched a campaign yesterday to treble the number of PET scanners and place them in 15 locations within five years. The £4m machines cost £1m a year to run and provide a 3D image of the tumour to assist the surgeon and can reveal whether the cancer has spread too far to make surgery worthwhile.

Full article:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=464776
Source: The Independent, 18 November 2003



Women and COPD

The Daily Express reports that chronic bronchitis and lung cancer, usually associated with the elderly, are on the increase and commonly found in people in their forties and fifties.

Lung cancer kills 28,000 people in the UK every year, and is now the biggest cancer killer in the world, beating breast, prostate and colon cancer combined.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), also known as chronic bronchitis, killed more than 25,000 Britons last year. More than three million of us are thought to suffer from it.

COPD causes acute attacks of breathlessness which can be triggered by walking or climbing stairs. The British Lung Foundation says its prevalence has peaked in men but women now account for 45.9 percent of the cases - a trend that continues to rise.

Professor Stephen Spiro, of the British Lung Foundation, says: "The image of the chronic bronchitic, an elderly chap in cloth cap, is fast fading. Noe the typical sufferer is a middle aged woman." He says that lung cancer and COPD are both major health issues for women.

"Although lung cancer is still more prevalent in men, if you add it together with other lung diseases such as bronchitis and emphysema, women are beginning to take over," he said.

Source: Daily Express, 18 November 2003



Health inequalities: North-East spending £100m pa on smoking related diseases

Treating the effects of smoking related disease is costing the North-East regions NHS as much as running a hospital, it was revealed last night.

North-East health services are forking out £100m a year to fight conditions linked to smoking.

Smoking kills 120,000 people a year in the UK. A north-south divide still exists in lung cancer, one of the main effects of smoking, with the region having a 20 percent higher rate than the rest of the country.

North East public health director Dr Bil Kirkup said: "We have the highest rates of smoking related diseases. Giving up - or not starting in the first place - is the best thing you can do for your health.

Source: Newcastle Journal, 13 November 2003



Smoke alarm: skin ages faster when you smoke

Smoking is the worst thing you can do with your mouth. The 12m smokers in the UK know this. But that doesn't stop a quarter of the female population from lighting up in the belief that smoking keeps them from eating, calms the nerves and raises the body's ability to burn calories. But it seems that smokers, especially as they age, must follow the spicy French beauty adage that translates, almost literally, thus: "After a certain age, a woman has to choose between her face and her ass."

The damage smoking does to facial skin is startling. According to Dr Nicholas Lowe, a dermatologist at London's Cranley Clinic, smoking reduces the skin's blood supply and damages its ability to produce elastin and collagen, which keep skin smooth and firm.

Full article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8124-897913,00.html
Source: The Times, 16 November 2003



Spa centre bans smoking

Smokers will have to step outside for their cigarette fix during Spa Centre events after a decision to ban smoking throughout the building.

Councillors expressed mixed views during an executive meeting at the Town Hall on Monday before passing the recommendation.

But the new policy will not come into place until 2006 despite a council target to help 1,000 people in the district quit smoking each year.

Full article linked from :
http://www.tobacco.org/news/143679.html
Source: Leamington Spa Courier, 17 November 2003



250,000 cigarettes seized at airport

More than 250,000 cigarettes have been seized from a group of incoming passengers at Exeter Airport.

Eight men and woman were arrested by customs officers checking an early morning flight from Tenerife.

They were allegedly carrying 18 suitcases full of cigarettes. Three men have been charged with duty evasion offences.

Mitchell Brazil, 19, of Main Road, Minsterworth; Robert Freeman, 22, of Bourton Road, Tuffley and Peter Wakeman, 24, of Sussex Gardens, Hucclecote, all in Gloucester, were released on bail and are due to appear at Exeter Magistrates' Court on 13 January next year on duty evasion charges.

The three men were charged with evading approximately £16,400 revenue on 96,760 cigarettes.

The remaining five men and one woman were released without charge, pending further Customs enquiries.

Among them were two men were from Ivybridge, near Plymouth, Devon, who allegedly had 63,320 cigarettes between them. Two men and a woman from the Southampton area are alleged to have had 91,020 cigarettes. One man from Wellington, Somerset was said to be carrying 36,380 cigarettes.

Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/3279611.stm
Source: BBC Online, 18 November 2003

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