HEADLINES

• Tobacco trade group chief quits
• Tobacco giant's war on science
• Six decades of dirty tricks
• Tobacco industry should be kept away from young people
• New research supports e-cigarettes as smoking cessation aid
• Brighton hospital goes smokefree again

• Tobacco trade group chief quits

  The head of the UK tobacco industry’s main trade body has resigned after failing to persuade the coalition government to rescind anti-tobacco measures.

  Christopher Ogden, chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, will step down in October as part of a review of the organisation's structure, which will see the departure of five of the TMA’s seven employees, and lead to a more localised approach to lobbying and campaigning by tobacco companies.

   

  Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, called the shake-out “a sign of how ineffective the TMA has been”, and said congratulations should go to the government for standing up to the tobacco industry.

   

  “The government’s commitment in its recently published Tobacco Plan to protect its public health policy from the vested interests of the tobacco industry and to go ahead with removing tobacco displays in shops must have been the last straw,” she added.

   

  [Access restricted to subscribers and registered users. Registered uses can access 10 free articles per month] 
  Source: The Financial Times, 31 August 2011
  Link: http://on.ft.com/ohd6Ld

• Tobacco giant's war on science

  Philip Morris International is seeking to force a British university to reveal full details of its research involving confidential interviews with thousands of children aged between 11 and 16 about their attitudes towards smoking and cigarette packaging.

  The demands from the tobacco company, made using the Freedom of Information Act, have coincided with an internet hate campaign targeted at university researchers involved in smoking studies. One of the academics has received anonymous abusive phone calls at her home at night.  

  Philip Morris says it has a "legitimate interest" in the information, but researchers at Stirling University say that handing over highly sensitive data would be a gross breach of confidence that could jeopardise future studies.

  
  "They wanted everything we had ever done on this," said Professor Gerard Hastings, the institute's director. "These are confidential comments about how youngsters feel about tobacco marketing. This is the sort of research that would get a tobacco company into trouble if it did it itself." Professor Hastings added: "What is more, these kids have been reassured that only bona fide researchers will have access to their data. No way can Philip Morris fit into that definition."

   

  See also editorial piece, The uses and abuses of freedom: http://ind.pn/mPbAr2 and a comment piece by science correspondent Steve Connor: http://ind.pn/pZcYPX

   

  BBC online: http://bbc.in/rbJ1Wn

   

  The Telegraph: http://tgr.ph/omoSPN
  Source: The Independent, 1 September 2011
  Link: http://ind.pn/n4zNzk

• Six decades of dirty tricks

  
  Ever since the link between smoking and lung cancer was established more than 50 years ago, the tobacco industry has displayed extraordinary tenacity when it comes to denying the scientific evidence showing that smoking kills.

  As early as 1953, the tobacco industry sought to spread disinformation to counter the medical evidence. Tobacco companies hired New York public-relations company Hill & Knowlton to "get the industry out of this hole."

   

  Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, tobacco companies were brazen in their denials despite the mounting scientific evidence linking smoking with a range of cancers and serious respiratory illnesses.  "Anything can be considered harmful. Apple sauce is harmful if you get too much of it." said a Philip Morris document written in 1976.

  
  And then in the 1990s came another bombshell from the scientists. Second-hand smoke inhaled by "passive smoking" was linked with ill health and there were calls to introduce smoking bans.

  
  Despite the evidence, the tobacco companies refused to accept the conclusions. Philip Morris launched a pro-active campaign to undermine the scientific case against second-hand smoke.

   

  But having lost the debate over smoke-free offices and public spaces, the industry is now turning its sights on the next big fight, against the possible introduction of plain cigarette packaging that is devoid of all logos and branding.

   

  Their fight against these proposals is again based on undermining the scientific evidence that plain packaging can reduce the number of children and young adults who take up smoking. They seek to discredit both the research and the academics who carry out these studies. It is a tactic they have employed for more than half a century of scientific denialism.
  Source: The Independent, 1 September 2011
  Link: http://ind.pn/oe2Aug

• Tobacco industry should be kept away from young people

  In an opinion piece, Jean King, director of Tobacco Control at Cancer Research UK, explains why the tobacco industry should not be allowed to influence health policy.

  Tobacco is the only consumer product that kills one in two long-term users. It remains the preventable cause of more than a quarter of all cancer deaths in the UK. The tobacco industry has funded misleading research and seeks to gain unwarranted respectability by association with credible bodies such as universities.

  The tobacco industry's own documents highlight that most of its youth smoking prevention campaigns are designed to promote the industry's political and marketing aims rather than to reduce smoking.

  Studies have shown how the industry has sought systematically to distort the scientific evidence on the harmful effects of tobacco, especially in relation to second-hand smoke. Scientists have been paid by the tobacco industry to speak at scientific and political forums, and to write letters and papers disputing the evidence on the harm caused by tobacco and second-hand smoking.

   

  The charity ASH recently documented how the tobacco industry uses front groups to put across its arguments including funding bodies to lobby politicians to fight against measures to remove tobacco displays from shops.

   

  There is a direct conflict between the interests of tobacco companies and those of public health and it is our duty to ensure that this industry is denied any opportunity to influence tobacco control policy.

   

  ASH's Tobacconomics report reveals how the tobacco industry has attempted to "throw sand in the gears" of public health policy: http://www.ash.org.uk/information/tobacco-industry/conduct/tobacconomics
  Source: The Independent, 1 September 2011
  Link: http://ind.pn/pxZ6ZG

• New research supports e-cigarettes as smoking cessation aid

  New research published in the International Journal of Clinical Practice found that the health risks associated with the use of e-cigs are likely much smaller than smoking traditional cigarettes and can potentially yield a large health benefit.

  Electronic cigarettes are not currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as smoking cessation products. The FDA classified them as a tobacco product in April, 2011.

  However, the report claims that e-cigs are being used successfully by smokers to quit smoking. 

  Source: Bio Portfolio, 31 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/oqTIPp

• Brighton hospital goes smokefree again

  
  Just as not everyone manages to give up smoking at the first attempt, so it is with the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

  But from 2 September the hospital is going smokefree again. Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, said: “We have attempted to go smokefree before but it is fair to say it didn’t work and not least because we were inconsistent in applying the policy.

   

  “As a compromise we tried introducing smoking shelters but I think most would agree these have not worked either as our grounds look like an ashtray.

   

  “All or nothing has to be the way forward, so all it is, and this time we mean it. This absolutely applies to staff, and to the relatives and visitors of those in our care, under any and all circumstances."

   

  Signs and bins are being put up by every entrance to the Royal Sussex – and around the Princess Royal in Haywards Heath, which is also run by the trust.
  Source: Brighton and Hove News, 31 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/pDINzc