HEADLINES

• Health Secretary calls for global action on lifestyle conditions
• Stop smoking enterprise sets the ball rolling
• Scotland: Extra cost to tobacco and alcohol sellers
• Chinese primary schools sponsored by tobacco firms
• Pakistan: No small cigarette packs after September 30
• USA: Tobacco companies urge US judge to delay graphic cigarette warning labels

• Health Secretary calls for global action on lifestyle conditions

  Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has urged governments across the world to be “bold and determined” in working together to tackle so-called ‘lifestyle’ conditions caused by poor diet, smoking and alcohol abuse.

  He made his call for action on cancer, respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes at a speech to the United Nations conference on non-communicable diseases this week, saying that preventing the risk factors which led to them could in turn prevent millions of deaths.

  Lansley invoked the spirit of UN meetings more than 50 years ago on infectious diseases such as smallpox and polio, “the greatest health challenges of their day”.

  “Today, we face new challenges from obesity, lung disease and alcohol-related diseases,” he told an audience in New York.

  “These are inextricably linked to the way we live our lives. They are just as widespread, just as chronic and increasingly threaten early mortality and disability,” he went on.

  Tackling the causes of health inequalities would only be possible via what he called a “whole government” approach “looking at better outcomes and helping individuals to make better choices about their own health”.

  Delegates to the UN conference will sign a declaration on how they are to affect a global response focusing on preventing these conditions.

  Source: InPharm, 21 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/qmiRfW

• Stop smoking enterprise sets the ball rolling

  A number of leading British companies have signed a contract with the Department of Health, pledging to play their part in the government’s ongoing quit smoking campaign.

  According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), several UK companies have tied up with the Department of Health to encourage their employees to quit smoking. McCain, Typhoo and Centrica are among the 285 firms to offer smoking cessation therapy to their employees.

  As part of the Government's Responsibility Deal, these firms will allow their staff to attend appointments during working hours without cutting wages, says the CIPD portal, adding that the scheme is targeted at improving public health.

  The organisations that have signed up to the deal are expecting to assert their influence over their employees to show them the merits of a healthy lifestyle at workplace, which, in turn, might help the smokers to kick the deadly habit, says the CIPD. A number of effective smoking cessation services are already available with the NHS.

  Source: 121doc, 22 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/qTJxKo

• Scotland: Extra cost to tobacco and alcohol sellers

  Major retailers who sell alcohol and tobacco will have to pay a new “public-health levy” in their business rates as part of Scottish Government spending plans.

  Finance Secretary John Swinney announced the measures as part of a three-year spending review, showing a “real-terms” reduction of £1.6billion between this year and 2014-15.

  He claimed his plan to transfer money from the resource budget into capital spending would keep the economy moving in the face of “Westminster-imposed” public-sector spending cuts.

  Source: Press and Journal, 22 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/nGgJIH

• Chinese primary schools sponsored by tobacco firms

  According to antismoking campaigners more than 100 primary schools in China are now sponsored by tobacco companies on the hunt for the next generation of smokers.

  The schools often bear the names of Chinese cigarette brands, such as Zhongnanhai or Liqun, over their gates and in some cases have slogans in the playground.

  "Talent comes from hard work –Tobacco helps you become talented," says one slogan, in foot-high gilt letters, on the front of the Sichuan Tobacco Hope Primary School.

  The school, which was built by the local tobacco company after a deadly earthquake in 2008, also bears the green leaf logo of China Tobacco, the country's all-powerful state-controlled monopoly, on its parapet.

  "It is not just primary schools; they also fund secondary schools and universities. But it is difficult to count them, because the Ministry of Education would not help us," said Wu Yiqun at the Think Tank Research Centre for Health Development. The figures were compiled by more than 60 prominent researchers in a report: Tobacco Control and China's Future.

  Tobacco companies have also built a network of libraries in the countryside, including at least 42 primary school libraries in Xinjiang and 40 in Tibet. They also widely sponsor school sports events and entertainment shows and in some provinces hold competitions for the best teacher.

  "Inside the schools, they often have branded uniforms and distribute cigarette-shaped sweets. Vendors near the school gates usually sell cigarettes one-by-one, rather than in packets," said Mrs Wu.

  Amanda Sandford, research manager at the charity ASH, said: “Smoking among women in China is currently low compared to that of men. But tobacco industry sponsorship of primary schools is a sickeningly blatant means of recruiting young girls, as well as boys, to a life of addiction to a deadly drug.”

  She pointed out that about 1.2 million of China’s 300 million smokers died every year from smoking-related diseases, a figure expected to triple by 2030.

  Source: The Telegraph, 21 September 2011
  Link: http://tgr.ph/roF7Ww

• Pakistan: No small cigarette packs after September 30

  From October 1 onwards, the making and import of packs containing less than 20 cigarettes will be banned in Pakistan.
  
  The ban which falls under Statutory Regulatory Order 863(1)/2010 issued by the Inter-Provincial Coordination Ministry is meant to discourage smoking among youngsters, who find small cigarette packs more affordable.
  
  The Sale of small cigarette packs is already prohibited in many countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France and some states of the US.

  Source: The News [Pakistan], 20 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/nBjEsP

• USA: Tobacco companies urge US judge to delay graphic cigarette warning labels

  The tobacco industry has urged a federal judge to block the implementation of graphic warning labels on cigarettes.

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is requiring tobacco makers to place stronger warnings and graphic pictures on the top half of cigarette packages starting in September 2012.

  Five tobacco companies, including Reynolds American Inc. and Lorillard Inc. have sued the FDA in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia arguing that the graphic images violate the First Amendment's free speech clause. The industry has said it would accept stronger text warnings in place of current warnings on the sides of cigarette packages.

  During the hearing, the tobacco companies asked a judge to temporarily block the implementation of the graphic warning labels while the case proceeds about whether the graphics are legal. Industry lawyers argued the companies would soon have to start spending "tens of millions of dollars" to purchase and test new equipment capable of printing the new labels.

  The judge in the case, Richard J. Leon, said he would try to make a decision by the end of October about whether to delay the implementation of the graphic warnings.

  Source: Wall Street Journal, 21 September 2011
  Link: http://on.wsj.com/oxkV8P