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ASH Daily news for 15 July 2010

HEADLINES

  • Anti-smoking law may be overturned in government review

    Labour's legislation to ban cigarette vending machines from pubs and remove tobacco displays from shops and supermarkets could be scrapped by the coalition government.

    The law was passed in the last few months of the previous administration, but the regulations that would have implemented the changes have been blocked after a campaign from cigarette manufacturers who threatened to seek a judicial review.

    Rightwing thinktanks also claimed the bans would be "ineffective or counter-productive".

    The possibility of reversing the Tobacco Act emerged in a reply to parliamentary question to the Department of Health, which said that given "the challenges facing business competition and costs", it would give further consideration to "the policy on display of tobacco products and sales from tobacco vending machines".

    The vending machine ban was proposed by Ian McCartney, a former Labour minister, who said the machines gave young children access to cigarettes. The act also requires cigarettes to be sold "out of sight". Similar schemes have been introduced in Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Thailand and Canada.

    Anti-smoking groups are angry about the prospect of a U-turn. Martin Dockrell, director of policy and research at Action on Smoking and Health, said: "The public health community is firmly behind this and the only people who oppose it are the people who profit from making and selling cigarettes. After all their election promises about public health surely the Coalition can make a better start than by caving in to the tobacco lobby?"

    Medical charities, which had lobbied MPs over the issue, were also angered by news of the review. Jean King, director of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK, said: "The evidence is clear and public support is overwhelming – removing tobacco from the point of sale is important if we are to protect children from tobacco." Campaigners have also been angered by a report from the Institute of Economic Affairs, which is influential in rightwing circles, claiming countries that introduce tobacco display bans could risk "significant economic damage and a deterioration in public health". This claim is "unjustified" according to Casey Quinn, a health economist at the University of Nottingham.

    Source: The Guardian, 14 July 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/bXbwSU

  • Smoking increases asthma attacks in pregnancy

    Asthma exacerbations are more frequent and severe in asthmatic pregnant women who smoke than in their nonsmoking counterparts, research shows.

    "Smoking and severe asthma exacerbations in pregnancy are risk factors for low birth weight babies," explain Peter Gibson (John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle, Australia) and team in the journal Thorax.

    But they add: "No studies have assessed the clinical implications of smoking on asthma exacerbations in pregnancy."

    To address this, the researchers studied 80 pregnant women with asthma and 46 pregnant women without the condition (controls) who were aged 18-43 years. All the participants underwent comprehensive assessments at 18, 30, and 36 weeks gestation.

    Participants with asthma also completed the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) at each visit, with a higher score indicating worse asthma control, and the number of exacerbations they experienced during pregnancy was also recorded.

    The researchers found that women with asthma were more likely to be current smokers (35%) than those without the condition (15%).

    In women with asthma, current (n=27) and former (n=27) smokers both experienced an average of 2.0 exacerbations during pregnancy compared with an average of 1.5 exacerbations among those who had never smoked (n=26).

    ACQ scores were significantly higher during asthma exacerbations in women who were current smokers than in those who had never smoked, at a median of 2.17 versus 1.17.

    Mean birth weights were also significantly lower among children born to smokers than in those born to women who had never smoked, at 3207 g versus 3479 g, in the asthma and control groups combined.

    Gibson and team conclude: "Pregnant women with asthma who smoke have exacerbations which are more severe and more frequent than never smokers.

    "Severe exacerbations during pregnancy are a significant risk factor for low birth weight, as is smoking itself.

    They add: "Smoking cessation should be particularly encouraged in pregnant women with asthma, as the effects of asthma on poor perinatal outcomes may be greater among smokers than nonsmokers."

    Source: MedWire News, 15 July 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/brxaWG

  • Focus on smoking message

    Pupils got creative to deliver a hard-hitting message to present and future smokers.

    Five secondary schools in and around Swindon have been involved in devising and producing six anti-smoking adverts.

    The result is a variety of 45 second pieces in which the pupils use drama to convey the consequences of smoking for your health, those around you and the tobacco industry.

    The project is being run by the Swindon Tobacco Control Partnership, an initiative between Swindon council and NHS Swindon.

    Cherry Jones, NHS Swindon stop smoking lead, said on behalf of the partnership: “It is critical we prevent young people from taking up smoking as it can have serious health consequences. It is therefore really important we educate young people about the dangers.”

    The scheme started with a National No Smoking Day in March where schools were asked to come up with ideas for adverts, from which six of the best were shortlisted.

    With help from professional filmmakers at Create Studios, the council’s digital art centre, and the council’s Healthy Schools Team pupils have researched, written and filmed the pieces.

    Ideas include Crowdys Hill School’s film about a baby’s first birthday party and Greendown Community School’s spoof dinner party.

    Warneford School, in Highworth, filmed a short drama about how smoking affects the relationship between a mother and daughter and Commonweal School pupils shot a film about an expectant mother who is smoking and has a choice between life and death.

    Commonweal School pupil Madison Smith, 14, of Old Town, said: “I understand it’s people choice if they want to smoke, but it’s good to get across the message.

    “I suppose you need to show the worst side of it.”

    Jess Shimwell, 14, of Old Town, said: “We’re not only putting this across to adults, but to people of our own age that do smoke.”

    The project has been funded by part of a £100,000 grant to the council from the Department of Health, for use by the Swindon Tobacco Control Partnership, with the aim of reducing health inequalities in local communities.

    The films will be premiered in September at Swindon’s Arts Centre and are to be screened locally as well as forming part of an education pack to be distributed to secondary-age pupils.

    Source: Swindon Advertiser, 14 July 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/d8Ospl

  • New Zealand: Teen smoking drops 30pc - study

    A new study shows a 30 per cent cut in the number of teenagers smoking - days after the Government announced a $12 million reduction in funding for anti-tobacco initiatives.

    The Year 10 Snapshot Survey conducted by the Action on Smoking and Health lobby group found that the number of children aged 14 to 15 who smoke daily is one-third what it was a decade ago, while the number who have never smoked has doubled.

    ASH director Ben Youdan said the decline was largely due to youth-focused anti-tobacco campaigns, the most recent of which was "Smoking - Not Our Future".

    However, the agency that runs this campaign is the one bearing the brunt of the spending cuts, with its budget being cut by $2.5 million a year.

    Mr Youdan said the cuts could mean that people would not get the "best possible value" out of the quit services available to them.

    He said the rate of non-smoking among teenagers had dramatically increased over the past few years, and taking the funding away could slow this rate down again.

    As well as the increase in anti-smoking campaigns, the use of graphic warnings on tobacco packaging was pinpointed by the report's author, Dr Janine Paynter, as having a significant effect on the results.

    According to Dr Paynter, a research and policy analyst for Ash, the introduction of these warnings in 2008 coincided with a sharp fall in the number of teenage smokers.

    She said the survey also asked the students if they had tried to stop and why they had done so.

    "Many said the graphic warnings were the reason they tried to quit."

    Dr Paynter said the "most promising" survey result was the decrease in Pacific Island girls smoking.

    The daily smoking rate among them has gone down by two-thirds since 1999 and Dr Paynter described this cut as "particularly pleasing".

    "It means that the inequalities between the ethnic groups are decreasing."

    Dr Paynter was also happy with the decrease in the number of teenage Maori girls smoking - which was half what it was when the the survey started in 1999.

    However, this was still the group most likely to smoke - with 18 per cent saying they smoked daily.

    Five thousand deaths a year in New Zealand are attributed to tobacco and 700,000 New Zealanders are regular smokers - most of whom began when teenagers.

    Dr Paynter said there were several ways to cut the rate of teenage smoking.

    One "well overdue" change would be to remove tobacco advertising and displays in shops, which would "provide an extra boost in removing tobacco from young people's lives".

    ASH spokesman Michael Colhoun agreed that this would be a good policy change.

    "It's something that's urgently needed, and it would be straightforward and easy to do."

    Source: NZ Herald, 15 July 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/9CDVxd

  • Asia's smoking related deaths likely to double by 2030

    New Australian research has found the number of people dying from smoking related lung cancer will double in Asia over the next twenty years.

    The study from the George Institute of Global Health found a third of the world's smokers live in the Asia-Pacific region, but many Asian countries have been slow to take up anti-smoking initiatives.

    Senior research fellow Dr Alexandra Martiniuk told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program that smoking rates are particularly high among countries with large populations like China, India and Indonesia.

    "Smoking rates are increasing and because of the time lag between smoking and deaths from things like lung cancer, we actually will see at least a doubling of deaths in the years to come in this region," she said.

    Dr Martiniuk says she was surprised to learn that 60 per cent of doctors in China are smokers.

    "This is why groups like the World Bank and the World Health Organisation are saying more research is needed as to why this (anti-smoking) message is being slowed," she said.

    She praises China for recently signing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which regulates tobacco advertising and smoking indoors.

    "But even still, given the current rates of smoking, we're still going to see a doubling of death from things like lung cancer and other cancers and cardiovascular disease, just simply because of the lag time when somebody starts smoking today, they may get sick in 10 to 20 years down the line," she said.

    Source: ABC Radio Australia, 14 July 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/aSCkhG

  • Tobacco giant sold cigarettes made using child labour

    Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been forced to admit that child workers as young as 10 have been subjected to long hours working on tobacco farms with which it has contracts in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan.

    According to a report by Human Rights Watch, migrant workers at the farms, mostly from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, were subjected to conditions that often amounted to forced labour, as employers contracted by tobacco farms that sold their produce to Philip Morris International had their passports confiscated and were often made to do additional work for no pay. The company, which sources tobacco from Kazakhstan for cigarette brands sold in Russia and other former Soviet states, said it was taking "immediate action" to stop the abuses.

    In many cases families were expected to pay back unrealistic debts to intermediaries who had arranged for their journeys to Kazakhstan, in schemes that bear all the hallmarks of people trafficking. The report also documented 72 cases of children working on the farms.

    Philip Morris produces brands such as Marlboro and Chesterfield in over 150 countries around the world, and purchased 1,500 tonnes of tobacco from Kazakh farms in 2009. The company issued a statement yesterday saying it is "grateful" to Human Rights Watch for raising the issues, and "is firmly opposed to child labour and all other labour abuses". The company says it is implementing a range of measures to ensure the abuses end, such as working with local government and NGOs to ensure school access for children of migrant workers, and implementing a system of third party monitoring to ensure tobacco farms comply with strict guidelines.

    Jane Buchanan, the report's author, blamed the Kazakh government as well as Philip Morris for the abuses. She said yesterday that progress had been slow with the authorities in discussions over bureaucratic hurdles and the need to provide schooling for migrant workers' children.

    "The commitments from [the government] have been very vague," she said. "It has been a lot of work to get them to accept the idea that migrant workers, even if they are working illegally, still have fundamental rights."

    According to Ms Buchanan, Human Rights Watch had first approached the tobacco conglomerate with the allegations in October last year, and there has been a "regular and constructive dialogue" since. "However, we have done some more research recently, and it's clear that not all the things they promised have been fully implemented yet," she said.

    In one of many such stories, Almira, 45, travelled to Kazakhstan from Kyrgyzstan with her husband and two children last year. They were promised by the intermediary who drove them to a tobacco farm in rural Malybai that they would be paid a minimum of $2,300 (£1,500) for their work over the season. However, when they arrived they were told they would have to work off debts from the journey, and had their passports confiscated by the landowner.

    "He treated us really badly," recalls Almira. "We couldn't defend ourselves, since we were on his land after all. We worked for 11 to 13 hours a day. The work was really hard." The family contemplated running away, but this was impossible. "Our passports were with the landowner, and we had no money. If we left, then all of our work would be for nothing. And without money, how would we even get back home from there?"

    Source: The Independent, 15 July 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/ad8hLT