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ASH Daily news for 31 May 2011

HEADLINES

  • WHO encouraged by anti-tobacco moves worldwide, but says much more needs to be done

    While celebrating World No Tobacco Day with encouraging words on progress made to stem the growth of tobacco usage globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) says enormous challenges still remain for the public health treaty to really do what it was created for - to become the planet's most powerful tobacco control tool.

    The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was adopted in 2003 by the World Health Assembly. The European Union as well as 172 other countries joined the treaty.

    Dr Margaret Chan, WHO General-Director, said: "The treaty's ultimate success against the tobacco industry depends on the extent to which the Parties meet all of their obligations. More needs to be done for the treaty to achieve its full potential. It is not enough to become a Party to the treaty. Countries must also pass, or strengthen, the necessary implementing legislation and then rigorously enforce it."

    Source: Medilixicon - 30 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/m6ifjo

  • Smokers ignore health warnings

    The government should outlaw branded cigarette packs to discourage smoking, research finds, as smokers train themselves not to see health warnings.

    Academics at the UK Centre for Tobacco Studies – based at Bath and Bristol universities – decided to find out, using eye-tracking technology, whether the government's introduction of health labels was effective at preventing the habit or encouraging addicts to stop.

    The academics' findings suggest that the best way to stop non-smokers from picking up the habit is to force cigarette-makers to box up their fags in plain packets devoid of any branding whatsoever.

    Marcus Munafò, professor of biological psychology at Bristol University, and Linda Bauld, professor of socio-management at the University of Stirling, called in 43 non-smokers, light smokers and daily smokers to look at both plain and branded cigarette packets to help them to work out the different effects. All of their research packs featured health warnings, but while the branded packets were samples from 10 of the UK's most popular cigarette-makers, the others were simple, unadorned white packets, with their brand name and number of cigarettes displayed only nominally in a standard font. The academics then fitted their volunteers with eye-tracking technology to see how they responded to the packets.

    "We measured the number of times each person viewed the top half of the pack, which contained the brand information, and the bottom half of the pack, containing the health warning information," explains Munafò. After analysing their findings, the researchers found that non-smokers and light smokers paid more attention to the stark health warnings on plain packs than on those adorned with names like Marlboro. By contrast, the frequent smokers did not – Bauld and Munafò believe they might have conditioned themselves to ignore them.

    The researchers say their evidence adds support to the idea that the government should force the tobacco industry to dump decorative packaging. Munafò reckons if the likes of British American Tobacco, maker of Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall, amongst others, were forced to standardise the colour and design of cigarette packaging – with all branding removed apart from a standard typeface including the name, relevant legal markings, and health warnings – it would boost the effectiveness of warnings. He adds that previous research suggests that the deterrent of plain packaging would be most powerful among children and young people, or those who believe they are smoking "healthier" cigarettes.

    Source: The Guardian - 30 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/mmcRsV

  • The unstoppable march of the tobacco giants

    An investigation by The Independent on Sunday reveals that tobacco firms have taken advantage of lax marketing rules in developing countries by aggressively promoting cigarettes to new, young consumers, while using lawyers, lobby groups and carefully selected statistics to bully governments that attempt to quash the industry in the West.

    In striving for greater profits, the big tobacco firms have pushed the average price of cigarettes up in rich countries such as Britain – where 20 cigarettes now cost more than £6 a pack – while hammering down the price paid to tobacco growers in poorer countries such as India and Malawi. Although around 77 per cent of the price of a pack is tax, the amount charged by tobacco companies has also increased.

    Anna Gilmore, professor of public health at the University of Bath, said: "What most people don't realise is that, although sales are falling in the West, industry profits are increasing. These companies remain some of the most profitable in the world. This is thanks in part to their endless inventive ways of undermining and circumventing regulation. They're trying to reinvent their image to ingratiate themselves with governments, but behind the scenes it's business as usual."

    In Britain, the industry is also prone to taking any measures necessary to keep regulation at bay. 

    A study from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), out this week, scrutinises the credibility of economic arguments used by the industry to fight back against legislation in th UK.

    Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, said: "In line with our international treaty obligations, the UK government has not only banned advertising and put health warnings on packs, but also committed to protect public health policies from the commercial and vested interests of the tobacco industry. To get round this, the industry uses front groups to covertly lobby politicians, arguing that smoke-free legislation has destroyed the pub trade, and that putting tobacco out of sight in shops will both be ineffective and put corner shops out of business.

    "The next big battle is over putting cigarettes in plain packs. Already the same arguments are being used. The evidence is thin or non-existent, but no matter, the danger is that policy makers will be misled that where there's smoke, there's fire."

    Source: The Independent on Sunday - 29 May 2011
    Link: http://ind.pn/liuvnR

  • Liverpool’s multi-million pound trade in illegal cigarettes from China

    The Echo lifts the lid on the black market trade that starts in China and ends up behind the counters of corner shops, pubs and newsagents across Liverpool.

    Three years ago Liverpool’s Trading Standards team found “factories” set up in Kensington’s terraced streets packed with Chinese immigrants and controlled by Triad gangs working to package illegal cigarettes that would be peddled around local shops, pubs and markets with gangsters pressuring businesses to sell their wares.

    As witnessed by the Echo while shadowing a Trading Standards operation all it takes in some city newsagents is for someone to ask “got any cheap cigs?” and the dodgy brands and smuggled packets are brought out showing the widespread scale of the problem.

    Source: Liverpool Echo - 30 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/k2pNoj

  • Research reveals smokers view nicotine as addictive as cocaine

    To mark World No Tobacco Day, a new survey, carried out by Ipsos MORI on behalf of Pfizer, reveals smokers themselves perceive nicotine to be more addictive than cocaine and only marginally less addictive than heroin.

    The new survey also shows that smokers will typically adopt some extreme behaviours in a bid to satisfy their serious addiction to nicotine and smoking. These behaviours range from the slight to the serious, such as enduring severe weather to smoke, covering up the habit to friends and family and even letting relationships ruin.

    However, the danger for many smokers comes from their gradual self-acceptance that these extreme behaviours are normal everyday life and simply part of their lifestyle as a smoker.

    Source: MediLexicon - 30 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/kKaxLM

  • Andrew Lansley forced to make U-turn on public health campaign cuts

    The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has been forced into a major U-turn on funding for public health campaigns, after evidence emerged that the spending freeze had cost lives.

    An extra £15m has now been set aside for promoting the government's anti-smoking website and £14m will be made available for a campaign promoting healthy living.

    Key evidence for the loss of life caused by the government's policy was provided in a submission to the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health by Professor Robert West, director of Tobacco Studies at Cancer Research UK.

    West told the group: "Evidence shows that total spending on government mass media campaigns in a given quarter is associated with smoking cessation activity in that quarter. If, as seems likely, this association is causal, the recent suspension of mass media campaigns will lead to significant loss of life, and with every month that passes without further activity the death toll will grow."

    West told the Observer that the most recent figures on giving up smoking confirmed his fears: "For smoking, most of the population are in a state of motivational tension, they are a bit dissonant about it and what the marketing does is tip them over the edge into activity. So if you stop doing that they carry on being dissonant.

    "We looked at a number of objectives – markers of cessation activity, attendance at clinics, hits on the website and the quit line – and the correlation is very striking. The association between marketing activity and spend was very strong.

    "It [lack of marketing] will have cost lives. For every year that someone over the age of 35 carries on smoking they lose three months of life expectancy. So if you just lose a year of significant activity you have already lost lives. That is the inescapable logic of it."

    Source: The Observer - 28 May 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/j9Lb8d