HEADLINES

• Record number quit smoking with NHS help
• Richard Branson - Children and cigarettes
• Smoking still too common in movies, CDC says
• Ireland: Concert promoters in tobacco probe
• China tobacco firms accused of targeting children

• Record number quit smoking with NHS help

  More people have quit smoking than ever before with the help of the NHS, figures showed today.

  Some 373,954 successfully gave up in 2009/10, an 11% rise on the 337,054 who gave up in 2008/09.

  The figure for last year is 49% of the 757,537 people who used the NHS quit service during the year.

  The NHS Information Centre figures relate to people in England who had successfully stopped when they were followed up after four weeks.

  A separate report on previously published data showed around one in 20 hospital admissions (462,900) for over-35s were linked to smoking in 2008/09.

  The first report showed 65% of people giving up smoking used nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), and 47% of those using it on its own were successful.

  Almost a quarter (23%) used the stop-smoking drug varenicline (Champix) last year, more than did so in 2008/09.

  Six out of 10 of those managed to quit using the drug, which has been linked to reports of depressive side-effects.

  Of those who did not use any kind of drug therapy, 49% were able to quit.

  Total spending on NHS stop-smoking services was almost £84 million last year, up £10 million from 2008/09.

  The cost per quitter was £224, an increase of 3% from the previous year.

  Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "Smoking is the biggest preventable cause of death in England.

  "NHS doctors, nurses and health professionals in local stop-smoking services are dedicated to tackling smoking - it's because of their excellent work that more people than ever have successfully quit. Over 50 years, we have halved the proportion of adults who smoked.

  "But some other countries have lower smoking prevalence than this, so we should go further and reduce the number who smoke."

  Betty McBride, director of policy and communications at the British Heart Foundation, said figures showed the proportion of adult smokers had stayed static (at 21%).

  "Whilst it's good news more people are successfully quitting, the fact that the proportion of smokers has not declined as well shows we can't rest on our laurels.

  "The coalition Government must resist the heavy mob calls from the tobacco industry to roll back vital legislation on vending machines and tobacco product displays.

  "It's so important that we keep working hard to stop future generations dying as a result of smoking."

  Martin Dockrell, director of policy and research at Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said: "This just shows what you can do when you have a proper plan to help smokers quit.

  "Smoking costs the NHS at least £2.7 billion a year and when you include disability benefits, absenteeism and other costs it mounts up to a colossal £13.74 billion, so the small investment from the Government brings huge benefits to UK PLC."

  Jo Webber, deputy director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said: "The NHS needs to find between £15 billion and £20 billion in savings over the next four years but it is important that in doing so the real benefits of these kinds of public health services are not forgotten.

  "In the long run, encouraging smokers to quit saves the health service money as well as vastly improving the quality of life of the people involved."

  Further coverage:

  BBC News: http://bbc.in/cDa4xA
  
  The Daily Mail: http://bit.ly/cNz5CJ

  Source: The Independent, 19 August 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/baPKJh

• Richard Branson - Children and cigarettes

  Parliament has already voted to protect children by putting tobacco out of sight in shops and removing cigarette machines. Unless the Government takes the next step of rolling out regulations, these changes will not happen.

  Allowing tobacco to continue to be displayed to children, along with easy access via vending machines, is unacceptable.

  Although tobacco advertising has been banned on television, in print and on billboards, children are still routinely tempted to smoke by colourful tobacco displays in shops, newsagents and supermarkets.

  There is huge public support for tougher controls on tobacco. About three quarters of people surveyed back the measures.

  Each day, approximately 450 under-18-year-olds start smoking across Britain. Half of all long-term smokers will die from the addiction and smoking remains the single biggest preventable cause of death in the country.

  I back Cancer Research UK’s call to put tobacco out of sight and urge the Government to put the health of children before the profits of tobacco companies. This is one of the best ways to reduce the devastating impact that tobacco has on the lives of so many people.

  Source: The Telegraph, 20 August 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/9VyrTE

• Smoking still too common in movies, CDC says

  The number of U.S. movies showing people smoking has declined since 2005, but cigarettes still feature in far too many films and could be influencing young people to take up the habit, according to a new report.
  

  The report's authors recommended that movie ratings also consider whether the film depicts smoking and suggested strong advertisements about the dangers of smoking precede movies that show tobacco use.

  "The results of this analysis indicate that the number of tobacco incidents peaked in 2005, then declined by approximately half through 2009, representing the first time a decline of that duration and magnitude has been observed," the team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the University of California San Francisco and elsewhere wrote.

  "However, nearly half of popular movies still contained tobacco imagery in 2009, including 54 percent of those rated PG-13, and the number of incidents remained higher in 2009 than in 1998," they added in the CDC's weekly report on death and illness.

  Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrat Edward Markey and Republican Joseph Pitts, who both serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote the Motion Picture Association of America encouraging the industry to adopt stronger anti-smoking measures.

  "Exposure to onscreen smoking in movies increases the probability that youths will start smoking. Youths who are heavily exposed to onscreen smoking are approximately two to three times more likely to begin smoking than youths who are lightly exposed," the CDC report reads.

  The researchers counted each time tobacco use was shown in the biggest-grossing films of 1991 to 2009.

  "This analysis shows that the number of tobacco incidents increased steadily after the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the state attorneys general and the major cigarette companies, in which the companies agreed to end brand placement," they wrote.

  They said the Motion Picture Association of America had done little to make changes but noted some studios had made voluntary changes and said Viacom was the first company whose movies rated for youth showed no use of tobacco in 2009.

  They suggested more policies could encourage filmmakers to do better.

  "Such policies could include having a mature content (R) rating for movies with smoking, requiring strong antitobacco ads preceding movies that depict smoking, not allowing tobacco brand displays in movies, and requiring producers of movies depicting tobacco use to certify that no person or company associated with the production received any consideration for that depiction," they wrote.

  Source: Reuters News, 19 August 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/cPDCe1

• Ireland: Concert promoters in tobacco probe

  Concert promoters MCD have been reported to health chiefs over the alleged promotion of cigarettes at a music event.

  Anti-tobacco campaigners Ash Ireland claimed free cigarettes were handed out backstage at the Oxegen festival, with only one brand on sale to revellers during the three-day event.

  Dr Angie Brown, of ASH Ireland, said complaints against MCD and a Temple Bar venue have been made to the Office of Tobacco Control and Health Minister Mary Harney.

  Source: The Press Assocation, 20 August 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/9Prbys

• China tobacco firms accused of targeting children

  Chinese tobacco companies are targeting women and children as potential smokers as the market in men has peaked, health experts said.
  

  Around 53 percent of Chinese men smoked, leading tobacco control activist Judith Mackay said, but only three percent of Chinese women.

  "Prevalence in men has peaked, but they are targeting women and children," she said at the World Cancer Congress in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. "That's where we need to be extremely vigilant."

  As the world's largest consumer and producer of tobacco with over 300 million smokers, health experts warned that tobacco firms in China were becoming more sophisticated in targeting their market.

  "Girls in China are getting more independent and they have more money to spend," Mackay said.

  Calls late on Thursday to China's National Tobacco Corp, the state-owned monopoly and the world's largest tobacco producer, were not answered.

  China's 1.3 billion population carries an enormous cancer burden. With one in every three cigarettes in the world smoked in China, the nation had 2.82 million new cancer cases and 1.96 million cancer deaths in 2008.

  Globally, there were 12.68 million new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths in 2008.

  Despite the massive health costs, experts say state-owned Chinese tobacco firms are skirting tobacco laws with tactics such as printing health warnings in English, rather than Chinese, and using very fine print.

  "The law mandates that the health warning should cover 30 percent of the face of the packaging in the front and the back," said Professor Yang Gonghuan, deputy general director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

  "But in actuality the words are very small. It's only a fine line."

  Source: Reuters News, 19 August 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/cQ4Had