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ASH Daily news for 21 November 2011

HEADLINES

  • Australia: Philip Morris sues after plain packaging laws pass

    The Federal Government's plain packaging laws for cigarettes have now passed both houses of Parliament but are facing their first legal challenge.

    The Senate agreed to the legislation earlier this month but made a number of amendments, including to the start date, and sent the legislation back to the Lower House.

    The House of Representatives today voted to support the changes.

    The legislation means cigarettes will have to be sold in generic dark green packets from December next year, six months later than the original time frame.

    After the legislation passed, tobacco giant Philip Morris announced it had started legal action against the Government. The company says it has served a notice of arbitration under Australia's Bilateral Investment Treaty with Hong Kong.

    Philip Morris says it will seek a suspension on the plain packaging laws as well as compensation for the loss of trademarks.

    Health Minister Nicola Roxon has called for tobacco companies to respect the will of the Parliament.

    She said, "Tobacco companies are addicted to litigation, but I call on them today to consider respecting the will of the Parliament - both houses and all parties have supported this legislation. It's time now to get on with the implementation and to make sure we can continue to reduce smoking rates across the country."

    Source: ABC News, 21 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/s80JTe

  • The ban that was guaranteed to have people fuming

    Below is an extract from a comment piece by Catherine Bennet in The Observer.

    "Despising nudges, the BMA has proposed a complete smoking ban in cars, whether or not they contain children. From its new paper, it is difficult to judge whether the threat from smoking in cars is such as to merit this eye-catching intervention. Is smoking in cars, for example, a greater threat to public health than the neglect and cruelty to patients that has been going on, under doctors' noses? Is it more dangerous to child health than poor diets, no sport, illiteracy, homelessness, emotional abuse, female circumcision, parental absenteeism?

    Like the BMA's initial figures on toxins, my anecdotal research must lack any credibility but, as hard as I peered into cars while driving around north London last week, I saw no one smoking in them at all. Of course, there were endless drivers doing the routine, homicidal things that cry out for cruel and unusual punishment –talking on mobiles, monstering cyclists, tailgating, driving at 40mph in 20mph zones, the scamps.

    Had the anti-smoking doctors allied themselves with road-safety campaigners, accident figures of the kind that ultimately converted opponents of seat belts might have attracted more support. The heavy price of driver distraction, well illustrated by the story of a lecturer whose car in 2001 killed three people when he reached for a sweet, is possibly more persuasive than feeble speculation about toxin residues in a BMA report that seems to have caused the greatest irritation possible, to people who would never harm a child, without getting near reducing the number of smokers."

    Source: The Observer, 20 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/uLOIOl

  • Smoking cessation recommended for Barret's Esophagus patients

    Patients with Barrett's esophagus (BE) should be encouraged to give up smoking, recommend researchers who found that tobacco use doubles the risk for progression to esophageal adenocarcinoma.

    However, contrary to previous research, the risk for future malignancy was not linked to alcohol consumption or body size, report Helen Coleman, from Queen's University Belfast, UK, and co-authors.

    The team examined the impact of lifestyle factors on the risk for progression from BE to malignant disease using data from 3167 patients in the Northern Ireland BE register who were diagnosed with specialized intestinal metaplasia between 1993 and 2005.

    After a mean follow-up of 7.5 years, 117 of the patients were diagnosed with esophageal high grade dysplasia or adenocarcinoma of the esophagus or gastric cardia by the end of 2008.

    Patients who currently smoked were significantly more likely to have been diagnosed with malignancy than those who had never smoked, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 2.03, after adjusting for age, gender, presence of low-grade dysplasia, Barrett's segment length, and other confounding factors.

    Source: MedWire News, 18 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/uWu1yt

  • Quitting smoking for 3 years improves heart disease prognosis

    According to US research, quitting cigarette smoking for at least 3 years is associated with important improvements in exercise parameters that predict cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk.

    The study, conducted by James Stein and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, evaluated the long-term effects of smoking cessation and continued smoking on treadmill stress testing (TST) parameters.

    Stein explained, "The effects of smoking and smoking cessation on stress testing and exercise markers of CVD risk have not been studied longitudinally in a large, prospective cohort of contemporary smokers. This is a matter of considerable importance because contemporary smokers are more overweight than those studied previously, and smoking cessation is associated with weight gain, which can adversely affect exercise capacity. Furthermore, the long-term effects of smoking cessation on exercise physiology are unclear."

    These findings are suggestive of improved cardiovascular prognosis, and indicate that the people who quit smoking are less likely to develop and die of heart disease, said Stein.

    Stein concluded that quitting smoking is the most important measure a person can take to reduce their risk for CVD.

    Source: MedWire News, 18 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/rCzsDG

  • Shock figures reveal how cigarette ban has not slowed toll on Scotland's most deprived estates

    The number of Scots smoking has risen for the first time since smoking was banned in public places in 2006.

    People in the most deprived areas are four times more likely to smoke than those living in the most affluent neighbourhoods.

    The BMA Scotland said: “Most patients admit to doctors that they wish they’d never started smoking, so much more must be done to help smokers to quit. This is particularly important in communities with high levels of poverty and deprivation, where smoking rates are far higher, with as much as 50 per cent of the adult population smoking. For these people, smoking is not a pleasurable ­activity – it’s a death sentence.”

    Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie hit out at Scottish ministers for cutting vital funding that helps smokers quit the habit.

    Around £900,000 is being slashed from the tobacco control budget over the next three years, down to £11.4million.

    Sheila Duffy, chief executive of anti-tobacco ­charity ASH Scotland, said: “As a society, we need to do more to protect young people from the tobacco industry, and the proposed retail tobacco display ban and ­consultation on plain packaging will help this.

    “Tobacco impacts most heavily on Scotland’s poorest communities and we need to give smokers the support they need so that they and their loved ones can reap the health and financial benefits of quitting.”

    Source: Daily Record, 20 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/uJs46I

  • USA: Dissolvable tobacco products appealing to women

    R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. reported that its Camel dissolvable tobacco products, which do not require spitting, are gaining traction with females in its test markets of Charlotte and Denver.

    Of the adult smokers who bought Camel Sticks, Camel Strips and Camel Orbs in the test markets during September and October, adult females represented 45 percent of the consumers, according to Reynolds. Of all tobacco consumers, 31 percent of the buyers were women.

    By comparison, men constitute 85 percent of the users of moist snuff and Camel Snus.

    Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, has called on Reynolds to permanently pull the dissolvable products and to stop pushing tobacco products that he said enticed children and discouraged smokers from quitting.

    Myers has said the dissolvable products appeal to children because they are easily concealed and colourfully packaged, shaped and flavoured to resemble mints or gum.

    In October 2010, GlaxoSmithKline, which sells the nicotine-replacement therapy products Nicorette and NicoDerm, requested that the FDA take Reynolds' dissolvable products out of test markets.

    "Smokeless tobacco products are currently being marketed without clear evidence of their safety," Glaxo said in a statement. The Reynolds products are being reviewed by the FDA's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee.

    Source: Winston Salem Journal, 20 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/rqeemI