HEADLINES

• British American Tobacco cut from U.S. racketeering case
• Study: Babies who sleep with smoker parents exhibit high nicotine levels
• Lung cancer study finds mentholated cigarettes no more harmful than regular cigarettes
• USA: Altria responds to menthol cigarette report
• Australian gov’t launches tougher anti tobacco campaign
• Philip Morris International says Japan profits intact

• British American Tobacco cut from U.S. racketeering case

  British American Tobacco Plc, Europe’s largest cigarette maker, was dropped from the U.S. government’s racketeering lawsuit after a judge in Washington ruled the U.S. no longer has the authority to hold the U.K. company liable for hiding the health hazards of smoking.

  U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler today said a 2010 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a securities case restricts the U.S. from seeking liability from “what is essentially foreign activity.”

  “There is no evidence that Congress intended to criminalize foreign racketeering activities under RICO,” Kessler wrote.

  In 2006, Kessler found that the British American Tobacco (Investments) Ltd. unit of British American Tobacco and other cigarette companies violated anti-racketeering laws by conspiring to hide the dangers of cigarettes. Kessler ordered the companies to stop marketing cigarettes as “light” and “low-tar” and to make statements about the health effects of smoking in newspapers and magazines and on cigarette packages.

  Source: Bloomberg Businessweek - 29 March 2011
  Link: http://buswk.co/fjyUk2

• Study: Babies who sleep with smoker parents exhibit high nicotine levels

  A study by the Atenció Primària Sense Fum programme at the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Cataluña (Catalonia regional government), published in BMC Public Health shows that babies who sleep in the same room as their parents exhibit nicotine levels three times higher than those that sleep in another room.

  These figures show that they suffer from what is known as "third-hand smoke", in other words the harmful smoke particles that impregnate their parents' skin, clothes and hair.

  The research involved the participation of 96 primary healthcare centres in Catalonia. The experts interviewed the parents of 1,123 babies (under 18 months of age), who had at least one smoking parent. They analysed hair samples from 252 babies in order to determine their nicotine levels, and carried out follow-up visits three and six months later.

  The parents' statements largely coincided with the results obtained from the hair analysis - 73% of the adults said they smoked or allowed smoking in their homes, while 83% of the hair analysed showed high nicotine levels.
   

  Source: Medical News Today - 29 March 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/eAR7ex

• Lung cancer study finds mentholated cigarettes no more harmful than regular cigarettes

  Smokers of mentholated cigarettes are no more likely to develop lung cancer than other smokers, according to a new, very large, prospective study of black and white smokers published online March 23 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 

  William J. Blot, Ph.D., of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Centre in Nashville, Tenn., and the International Epidemiology Institute, Rockville, Md., and colleagues conducted a prospective study among 85,806 people enrolled in the Southern Community Cohort Study, an ongoing multiracial study in 12 southern states. Within this cohort, they identified 440 lung cancer patients and compared them with 2,213 matched controls (other people in the study with the same demographics, such as race, age, and sex, but without lung cancer).

  The authors conclude that mentholated cigarettes are no more, and perhaps less, harmful than non-mentholated cigarettes. They note that the findings are timely, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now considering whether to ban or regulate mentholated cigarettes.

  Source: Science Centric - 28 March 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hm8oML

• USA: Altria responds to menthol cigarette report

  Altria Client Services on behalf of Philip Morris USA Inc. has sent the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a written report summarizing the science and evidence on the impact of the use of menthol in cigarettes on the public health. The FDA asked the tobacco industry to provide a separate report on the topic to the Tobacco Products Science Advisory Committee (TPSAC), which recently released its findings that there is scientific evidence to back up the notion that removing menthol cigarettes from the market would benefit public health in the United States. Lorillard Inc. issued its own response to the findings.

  The Philip Morris report found that its “review of the science- and evidence-based information demonstrates that regulatory actions or restrictions related to the use of menthol in cigarettes are neither necessary nor justified."

  The entire report can be accessed online.

  Source: NACS Online - 28 March 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/gGOSDc

• Australian gov’t launches tougher anti tobacco campaign

  The Australian government on Monday launched its new advertising campaign calling on all Indigenous Australians to quit smoking. The new campaign will start hitting the airwaves, newspapers and TV screens today as the Australian Government continues its world-leading action to combat tobacco use.

  This campaign depicts a young Indigenous woman reflecting on her own experience of having lost family and friends to smoking related diseases and how she doesn't want her own children to think dying early from smoking related diseases is normal.

  Minister for Indigenous Health Warren Snowdon said that smoking alone accounts for around 20 per cent of all Indigenous deaths, and it's the number one cause of chronic conditions and diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

  Source: International Business Times - 28 March 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hvXs3B

• Philip Morris International says Japan profits intact

  The earthquake and tsunami in Japan are not expected to affect Philip Morris International Inc.'s sales and profit in the country, the cigarette maker said; adding that all of the cigarettes for sale in Japan are produced outside the country and shipments at ports are "being unloaded normally."

  The company said four of 28 third-party distribution centers in Japan are closed because of damage. Two are expected to open this week, and other distribution arrangements are being made for the other two centers.

  Source: Richmond Times Dispatch - 28 March 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/giXZmq