Somerset: Smokers asked to think about others

Health advisors are reminding smokers in Yeovil that even if they are not ready to quit the habit they ought to protect their family and loved ones from their secondhand smoke.

Since July 2007, smoking has been banned in all indoor public places and workplaces throughout the UK, protecting many adults from exposure to secondhand smoke.

The health benefits are already beginning to be felt, particularly amongst those working in pubs, clubs and restaurants.

However, it is estimated that about 40% of children in UK households – ie. around five million – are exposed to secondhand smoke in the home. Unlike adults, children have little control over the extent of such exposure.

Other people's tobacco smoke can cause a wide range of health problems.

Among children, secondhand smoke has been strongly linked to an increased risk of chest infections (including pneumonia and bronchitis, sometimes leading to emergency hospital admission), asthma attacks, glue-ear and middle-ear infection, reduced lung function, and sudden infant death syndrome (‘cot death’).

As well as the adverse health impacts of secondhand smoke, children whose parents smoke are around three times more likely to become smokers themselves.

The only sure way to protect children from secondhand smoke is by not smoking in the home, car or other enclosed space. Simply opening windows or smoking in another room does not offer sufficient protection.

The Smokefree Somerset Alliance has launched a Smokefree Homes and Cars project to help parents who smoke to make their homes smokefree and encourage them to always smoke outside.

Smokefree Families adviser, Tracey Hellyar, said: “Giving up smoking altogether is never easy but the next best thing parents can do is to make sure that they never smoke in confined spaces where concentrated smoke can cause so much damage to young hearts and lungs.

“As parents you can choose whether you smoke or not, but children do not have that choice. Protect your loved ones, always smoke outside.”

Source: Yeovil Express - 18 January 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/4B7aBU

Report shows health effects of Iowa’s smoking ban

A new report shows Iowa’s smoking ban has already led to a decrease in hospitalizations for cardiovascular diseases.

According to the report from the University of Iowa and Iowa Department of Public Health, the largest drop was in coronary heart disease, which showed an average 24 percent reduction in hospital admissions since the Smokefree Air Act was implemented in 2008.

That represents 2,324 fewer Iowans with the condition — the single greatest cause of death in the United States — compared to the three preceding years.

“That’s a lot of dollars, too, if you think about it in that way,” said Christopher Squier, a lead author of the report.

The act prohibits smoking in nearly all public places in Iowa, including restaurants and bars.

Squier, a UI oral pathology professor, said the decreases are related to smoke exposure.

Even 30 minutes of exposure could trigger a condition in people who are vulnerable, he said, because of the effect of smoke on vessels that supply blood to the heart.

“As we increasingly have clean air, people don’t have this exposure,” Squier said.

He noted that the benefit appears to get larger over time, with a more than 40 percent decrease in coronary heart disease admissions in June 2009 compared to June 2008.

Decreases were also seen in admission rates for heart attacks, the leading cause of death worldwide. Those rates dropped by 8 percent, or 483 fewer Iowans with the condition, compared to the preceding three years.

Rates of stroke — the leading cause of adult disability in the U.S. and second cause of death worldwide — also decreased.

After the smoking ban, rates of stroke admissions at Iowa hospitals dropped by 5 percent, representing 347 fewer Iowans with the condition, compared to the previous three years.

Admission rates for kidney infections and pancreatitis, control conditions in the study, did not change after the smoking ban.

Squier said he was not surprised at the results, as studies elsewhere, such as Colorado, New York and Scotland, showed similar reductions.
For example, a report last year from the Institute of Medicine showed decreases of 6 to 47 percent in heart attacks after smoking bans were implemented, based on a large number of studies.

Squier said it will take longer to see the effects on cancer rates.

“In 20 years is when we’ll see the real payoff,” he said.

The report was presented Thursday by the American Cancer Society at a legislative breakfast in Des Moines.

Source: Gazette Online - 15 January 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/7FFCb3

Tennessee hospital to stop hiring smokers

As if higher tobacco taxes, steeper health insurance premiums and smoke-free workplaces weren’t enough, tobacco users have one more financial incentive to kick the habit — missed job opportunities.

Starting Feb. 1, Memorial Hospital no longer will hire people who use tobacco products, making the hospital one of a small number of employers nationwide that consider smoking status in job applicants.

Under the new rule, which does not affect current Memorial employees, those offered employment at the hospital will be tested for nicotine during their required drug test, a human resources officer said. Even nicotine gum or the patch would make a potential employee ineligible.

The decision not to hire tobacco users isn’t based on potential savings in health care costs, but rather is an extension of the hospital’s commitment to health, said Brad Pope, vice president of human resources. Like all hospitals in the region, Memorial’s entire hospital campus is tobacco-free.

“I understand the concerns people have, but we are here for the health of our community,” he said. “Like it or not, what’s proven is that tobacco is the most preventable cause of death and disability in the United States. I think the Chattanooga and surrounding communities should expect this from Memorial.”

The practice of refusing employment to tobacco users began to crop up a few years ago and isn’t yet widespread, a tobacco control researcher said. Particularly in the deep South, and in a tobacco state such as Tennessee, it’s a bold move for Memorial, said pulmonologist Dr. Carlos Baleeiro, with Battlefield Pulmonology in Fort Oglethorpe

“It’s very brave of them,” he said. “I’m quite impressed by Memorial.”

A growing number of workplaces now deny employees the right to smoke anywhere on their campus, including outside. Policy prohibiting the hiring of tobacco users may be the future as the country develops a deepening social intolerance of smoking, said Jay Collum, coordinator of tobacco education and control at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department.

“Especially in a tobacco-growing state in the Southeast, this is a huge change in mindset and positioning, but we’re really behind the curve in our area,” he said.

For others, this step is a slippery slope. Some are concerned about the potential for hiring restrictions based on other unhealthy — but entirely legal — behaviors.

Tobacco-control researcher Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, said he’s an avid proponent of education on the dangers of tobacco use, but he believes policies about not hiring tobacco users amount to discrimination.

Twenty-six states have laws prohibiting such a policy, according to a report he co-wrote last year in the journal Tobacco Control.

“The same rationale that would support not hiring smokers would also support not hiring people who are obese or people who have young children or people who don’t eat nutritious food or people who don’t exercise,” he said. “What it’s basically saying is the private behavior of people in their own homes is somehow relevant to their qualifications to work in a workplace.”

Dr. Siegel worries that if many large employers refuse to hire smokers, tobacco users — those arguably in the greatest need of health care — will struggle to gain employment and health insurance.

For smoker Mike Sullivan, an ICU nurse at Memorial, the new rule doesn’t come as a surprise.

“They’re not the first company to do that, and they won’t be the last,” he said.

Mr. Sullivan has smoked on-and-off for more than 30 years, quitting countless times and always going back to the habit.

Mr. Sullivan, 53, said in less than two years he’ll be eligible for retirement, and he’d hoped to come back and work part time at Memorial after retiring. But now, that would mean he’d have to kick the habit for good.

“I really think it would be a good incentive” finally to quit, he said.

This year for the first time, new recruits for the Chattanooga Fire Department can’t be smokers, a decision the city hopes will bring both savings in insurance costs and improvement in firefighters’ health.

“The main thing is to keep a healthier employee. We get ’em for 25 to 30 years or longer, and we want them to be healthy throughout their life while they’re here, as well as when they retire,” said Chief Randy Parker.

Costs and productivity consideration have led many employers nationwide, including the Chattanooga Times Free Press, to raise health insurance premiums for employees who use tobacco products and experiment with other programs to encourage wellness and help workers quit using tobacco, said Ron Harr, senior vice president of human resources and public affairs for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

“There is absolutely an increased interest by our customers in anything they can do that makes their employee group healthier and reduces their insurance risk,” he said.

He had not heard of any other employers in the state actually ruling out smokers as job applicants, he said.

The average smoker costs his or her employer $2,500 to $4,000 more each year in health care costs, compared with a nonsmoker, said Cathy Taylor, assistant health commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Health.

Nationally, smoking is responsible for an estimated $96 billion in direct medical costs and $97 billion in lost productivity annually, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some are optimistic that there will be little resistance to heightened restrictions for smokers. When Hutcheson Medical Center’s campus went smoke-free last year, Dr. Baleeiro recalled that some were concerned about a negative backlash, but that never happened.

The same is true with Georgia’s partial smoking ban that passed in 2005, prohibiting smoking in most public places, he said. Tennessee passed a similar ban in 2007.

“They thought restaurants would go out of business; bars would close, and none of that happened,” he said. “I think (Memorial’s new rule) is going to be an interesting experiment to see how that’s going to be taken in the community.”

Source: Times Free Press - 18 January 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/5iPmhD

What's in a cigarette? FDA to study ingredients

The Food and Drug Administration is working to lift the smokescreen clouding the ingredients used in cigarettes and other tobacco products.

In June, tobacco companies must tell the FDA their formulas for the first time, just as drugmakers have for decades. Manufacturers also will have to turn over any studies they've done on the effects of the ingredients.

It's an early step for an agency just starting to flex muscles granted by a new law that took effect last June that gives it broad power to regulate tobacco far beyond the warnings now on packs, short of banning it outright.

Companies have long acknowledged using cocoa, coffee, menthol and other additives to make tobacco taste better. The new information will help the FDA determine which ingredients might also make tobacco more harmful or addictive. It will also use the data to develop standards for tobacco products and could ban some ingredients or combinations.

"Tobacco products today are really the only human-consumed product that we don't know what's in them," Lawrence R. Deyton, the director of the Food and Drug Administration's new Center for Tobacco Products and a physician, told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

While the FDA must keep much of the data confidential under trade-secret laws, it will publish a list of harmful and potentially harmful ingredients by June 2011. Under the law, it must be listed by quantity in each brand.

Some tobacco companies have voluntarily listed product ingredients online in recent years but never with the specificity they must give the FDA, said Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

For example, Altria Group Inc., based in Richmond and the parent company of the nation's largest tobacco maker, Philip Morris USA, has posted general ingredients on its Web site since at least 1999.

Cigarette makers say their products include contain tobacco, water, sugar and flavorings, along with chemicals like diammonium phosphate, a chemical used to improve burn rate and taste, and ammonium hydroxide, used to improve the taste.

Scientific studies suggest those chemicals also could make the body more easily absorb nicotine, the active and addictive component of tobacco.
"Until now, the tobacco companies were free to manipulate their product in ways to maximize sales, no matter the impact on the number of people who died or became addicted," Myers said. "The manner of disclosure previously made it impossible for the government to make any meaningful assessments."

About 46 million people, or 20.6 percent of U.S. adult smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, down from about 24 percent 10 years ago. It also estimates that about 443,000 people in the U.S. die each year from diseases linked to smoking.

Tax increases, health concerns, smoking bans and social stigma continue to cut into the number of cigarettes sold, which were estimated to be down about 12.6 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period last year.

Cigarettes and their smoke contain more than 4,000 chemicals; among them are more than 60 known carcinogens, according to the American Cancer Society. But scientists say they can't yet tell all they'll learn from the new data because so little is known about how the chemicals combine to affect people.

"The reality is that we have known so little over time that it's difficult to know with much accuracy what getting a good look is going to tell us about what we could do in the future," said Dr. David Burns of the University of California-San Diego, scientific editor of several surgeon general reports on tobacco.

The real test is whether the FDA acts on the information it receives, said David Sweanor, a Canadian law professor and tobacco expert. Canadian authorities are collecting similar data, but they haven't taken much action based on it, which is critical, he said. The European Union also has similar submission requirements.

Myers warned that a list of ingredients or an unexplained product label is "just as likely to mislead as it is to inform" if consumers don't know about the relative effects of ingredients.

Altria has supported what it has called "tough but fair regulation."

But its chief rivals — No. 2 Reynolds American Inc., parent company of R.J. Reynolds, and No. 3 Lorillard, both based in North Carolina — opposed the law. They said it would lock in Altria's share of the market because its size gives it more resources to comply with regulations and future limits on marketing under the law. Altria's brands include Marlboro, which held a 41.9 percent share of the U.S. cigarette market in the third quarter, according to Information Resources Inc.

Source: Yahoo! News - 18 January 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/4E1dBZ

Calls for ban on smoking when children are in cars

Adults should be banned from smoking in their own cars when driving children around, leading public health figures have said.

The idea, which has become law in some parts of the world, is one of 12 measures designed to improve people’s health put forward by the UK Faculty of Public Health.

The manifesto, aimed at political parties, also includes a call for a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, no junk food advertising before the 9pm watershed and a 25% increase in cycle lanes and cycle racks by 2015.

Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said: “Each of these sensible, practical steps could have a significant impact on people’s health.

“Together they amount to a package of measures that could save many lives and relieve pressure on the NHS. Preventing ill-health with firm policies such as the smoking ban in cars has got to be right up there at the top of the next government’s agenda. Any party that claims to be the party of the NHS has to commit to promoting and protecting health as well as healthcare – all the more so with such lean times ahead.”

The controversial idea of extending the smoking ban to cover private cars would bring the UK in line with other parts of the world, including Cyprus, some US states and Australian regions.

It is also under consideration in the Netherlands and South Africa.

Research by the California Environmental Protection Agency found that being exposed to cigarette smoke particles in a closed car is equivalent to the exposure of fighting a wildfire for over four to eight hours.

A 31-year-old woman was convicted of smoking in a vehicle containing a three-year-old child in New South Wales last year.

Alison Manning avoided a fine or sentence for the smoking offence, but was banned and fined for other driving offences.

Tanya Buchanan, chief executive of ASH Wales, said: “While ASH Wales urges the UK government to investigate banning smoking in cars, we recognise there needs to be greater education about the risks of smoking in cars.

“The lesson of banning the use of mobile phones in cars is that if you don’t educate people about the risks first, people won’t abide by the law.

“With nearly a quarter of the adult population of Wales currently smoking, what we need is more education on the risk of smoking in cars to discourage people from doing it.”

The call for a 50p minimum price for each unit of alcohol comes amid fears about the amount being drunk and its health impact.

The UK Faculty of Public Health said that consumption is strongly linked to affordability – as price has fallen, consumption has risen. It added that alcohol is now 69% more affordable than it was in 1980.

Andy Misell, policy officer for Alcohol Concern Cymru, said: “We welcome support for a minimum price of 50p – it’s an issue which seems to be back on the agenda in Scotland.

“All the evidence suggests that the two main things that make a difference to how much people drink are price and availability.

“Research has show that the impact on moderate drinkers is likely to be less than 30p a week, even less if people reduce their drinking further.

“This is not a question of penalising the majority and the potential public health benefits are enormous.”

Ideas for tackling the obesity epidemic include a ban on junk food advertising before the 9pm watershed, stopping the use of trans fats and new rules for food labelling.

Prof Richard Parish, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health, added: “We are facing unprecedented challenges to public health ranging from climate change to a catastrophic diet and accidents to alcohol abuse.

“The time to act is now, not wait until it is too late to do anything meaningful. Many of the actions needed require political will, rather than resources.”

A pdf of the full manifesto can be downloaded by clicking here.

Source: Wales Online 19 January 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/50gguK