Category: People

Smoking restrictions, no ban
Japan’s health ministry has relaxed its planned restrictions on tobacco smoking in restaurants, according to a story in the Japan Times quoting government sources yesterday.
The ministry, which initially planned to ban smoking in restaurants with a floor space of more than 30 square meters, is now leaning toward allowing smoking at restaurants with a floor space of up to 150 square meters.
The measure, expected to be implemented in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, is likely to face criticism from doctors.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, some of whose members are said to have strong ties with the tobacco and restaurant industries, has argued that smoking should be permitted at restaurants with a floor space of up to 150 square meters.
It says that tougher smoking restrictions would deal a serious blow to some restaurants.
Under a new ministry proposal, even restaurants with a floor space of more than 150 square meters would be allowed to include special smoking rooms.
Smoking would be banned, however, in establishments that open after the implementation of the regulations and in those run by major restaurant chains.
Smoking would be banned also on the premises of clinics, hospitals, and elementary, junior-high and high schools.
According to World Health Organization standards, Japan is among the lowest ranked countries in tobacco control, with no smoke-free law covering all indoor public places.
November 17, 2017
E-cigs’ role with vulnerable
A group of UK health bodies and charities has called for more to be done to help smokers with mental health conditions quit, including providing them with access to electronic cigarettes and other treatments, according to a story on cancerresearchuk.org.
In its statement on e-cigarettes, the Mental Health & Smoking Partnership said that smoking remained ‘part of the culture in too many mental health settings’, and that vaping and nicotine replacement therapies should be made an easier choice than smoking.
Professor Ann McNeill, co-chair of the partnership, said that people with a mental health condition were more than twice as likely to smoke as were others.
“This is a great inequality leading to early death and years of chronic illness for many,” she said. “E-cigarettes provide a new opportunity for people to move away from smoking and avoid the terrible burden of death and disease it causes.”
The story is at: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer-news/news-report/2017-11-15-vaping-should-be-part-of-support-to-help-smokers-with-mental-health-conditions-quit.
November 17, 2017
Tax revenue to help elderly
Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly has voted to earmark two percent of the revenue it receives from alcohol and tobacco excise taxes to the Elderly Fund, which provides pensions for financially-poor seniors, according to a story in the Bangkok Post relayed by the TMA.
This is the fourth time taxes have been earmarked to fund specific programs.
Previously two percent of the revenue from excise taxes was allocated to the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, 1.5 percent was allocated to the state-owned television operator, Thai PBS, and two percent was allocated to the National Sports Development Fund.
The television and sports funds are capped at 2 billion baht (US$60.75 million) each year and the new appropriation is capped at 4 billion baht (US $121.5 million) a year.
Any revenue in excess of the caps revert to the state coffers.
Eligible seniors must be registered with the government’s poverty assistance program, be at least 60 years old and earn no more than 100,000 baht (US $3,037.67) a year.
November 17, 2017
Pride in nanny-award
A Senator has been declared Ireland’s ‘nanny-in-chief’ at a dinner organized by the smokers’ rights group Forest Ireland.
Catherine Noone, who was guest of honor at the inaugural Golden Nanny Awards in Dublin on Monday night, was awarded the accolade for going ‘above and beyond’ other politicians and public health campaigners.
“Our overall winner stands out even in a country that has so many politicians with a nanny-state instinct,” said Keith Redmond, co-founder of the Hibernia Forum think tank, who presented the award. “Senator Noone has gone above and beyond the rest, raising eyebrows even among her nanny-state colleagues.
“She not only supports headline grabbing policies like minimum pricing of alcohol, the booze burka, and plain packaging of tobacco. She has also advocated bans on fast food outlets, proposed a ban on price promotions for chocolate biscuits and even wanted to ban chimes on ice cream vans.”
Accepting her award, Noone said, “Libertarians, contrarians, barbarians, thank you”.
“This is not about telling people what to do, but it is vital that the government raises awareness of how to prevent health issues rather than simply treating them,” she said
Noone later tweeted, “Proud recipient of the Golden Nanny Award 2017 – proud moment”.
Other winners at Monday’s ‘Farewell to Freedom’ dinner included Fine Gael TD [Teachta Dála – member of the lower house] Marcella Corcoran Kennedy ‘for services to plain packaging of tobacco’ and finance minister Paschal Donohoe for introducing the sugar tax.
Senator James Reilly’s crusade against smoking earned the former health minister a ‘lifetime achievement award’ while TV chef and restaurateur Jamie Oliver won the International Golden Nanny award for his ‘puritanical’ campaign against obesity.
John Mallon, spokesman for Forest Ireland, said The Golden Nanny Awards highlighted the explosion of nanny state regulations in Ireland.
“The sugar tax, plain packaging of tobacco and minimum pricing of alcohol are simply the latest examples of excessive and unnecessary government interventions in the lives of ordinary people,” he said.
“People are fed up of being told how to live their lives. Other politicians and NGOs take note otherwise you too could be nominated for an award next year!”
November 17, 2017
Murder, she suggested
The idea that tobacco companies could face murder trials should be treated with contempt, according to a story by Rob Lyons on Spiked.
Part of a Sunday Times report of November 12 that was reprinted on the ASH UK (Action on Smoking and Health) website on November 13 quoted the organization’s chief executive Deborah Arnott, as saying that, in the light of the Dutch action, ASH was assessing the feasibility of pressing the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International, Imperial Brands and Japan Tobacco International, or obtaining permission for a private prosecution.
“The lesson from the Netherlands is that the prospect of criminal charges has had a sensational impact,” Arnott said. “Smokers have been angry to find out low tar cigarettes are no healthier, because smokers inhale more tar and nicotine from low tar cigarettes than the tests show. Sick smokers have come forward in their thousands to take action against the industry.”
According to the ASH rendition of the Times’ story, campaigners in nine countries are working on comparable cases. This followed a meeting of activists in Geneva this summer convened by ASH US.
Lyons dismissed the two main grounds on which such prosecutions would apparently be based: that smokers were misled into believing that low-tar cigarettes were safer than were regular cigarettes, and that many people started smoking when they were children and should have been protected.
Lyons said that anti-smoking campaigners were facing an existential crisis because they had largely won the argument about restricting people’s freedom to smoke; and that’s why they were now coming up with hare-brained strategies.
It was high time that those people who believed in choice fought back, he said.
Lyons piece is at: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/no-big-tobacco-is-not-murdering-people/20535#.Wg1RM4inxPZ.
The ASH piece is at: http://ash.org.uk/media-and-news/ash-daily-news/ash-daily-news-13-november-2017/
November 16, 2017
Warning: parents
Four out of 10 children in the US are exposed to second-hand smoke, according to a Medical Xpress story quoting the American Heart Association.
The claim is apparently based on a new Tel Aviv University (TAU) study suggesting that parents who smoke mistakenly rely on their own physical senses to gauge the presence of tobacco smoke in the air.
“This reliance on their own physical sensory perceptions leads to misconceptions of when and where children are exposed to tobacco smoke,” said Dr. Laura Rosen of TAU’s School of Public Health and Sackler Faculty of Medicine, who led the research for the study that was recently published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
“No one has previously put their finger on this exposure perception problem,” Rosen said.
“This is important for the ongoing debate about restrictions on smoking in public places, since people may be exposed without being aware of it.”
The research team conducted in-depth interviews with 65 parents of young children from smoking households across Israel. They were said to have found many false assumptions and a lack of awareness of where and when the children were exposed to cigarette smoke.
“Many parents believe they are taking adequate measures to protect their children from the damage of cigarette smoke,” Rosen said. “But we found that they are not even aware of some of the exposure, and therefore do not take sufficient measures to protect their children.”
The researchers then compared the participating parents’ conceptions of second-hand smoke exposure with scientific findings from recent studies. They found that the parents believed that if they did not see or smell the smoke, their children were not exposed.
“But previous studies have shown that 85 percent of smoke is invisible, and many components of cigarette smoke are odorless,” said Rosen. “What’s more, you can’t rely on a smoker’s sense of smell, which may have been damaged by smoking.”
Other parents reported believing that if they smoked beside an open window, on a balcony or in a designated area – or ventilated a room after smoking – their children would not be exposed to smoke. “But urine tests of children whose parents smoke near open windows indicate double the normal level of cotinine, a product of nicotine,” said Rosen.
“To protect children from second-hand smoke, parents must be convinced that exposure occurs even when they themselves do not see or smell the smoke. Parents’ awareness of smoke exposure is essential to protecting children from second-hand smoke.”
November 16, 2017
Warning: grandparents
Grandparents – or, presumably, some grandparents – are a potential health hazard for children and may increase their risk of cancer, according to a story in the Irish Independent citing a new survey.
Some grandparents are said to spoil their grandchildren with sweet treats and big helpings of fattening food, and expose their lungs to second-hand tobacco smoke.
These claims are based on a review of research into the influence grandparents have on lifestyle factors that can sow the seeds of cancer in later life.
Lead author Dr. Stephanie Chambers, of the University of Glasgow’s Public Health Sciences Unit (Scotland), said that while the results of the review showed that behaviour such as smoking and regularly treating increased cancer risks as children grew into adulthood, it showed too that these risks were indulged unintentional.
“Currently grandparents are not the focus of public health messaging targeted at parents and in light of the evidence from this study, perhaps this is something that needs to change given the prominent role grandparents play in the lives of children,” said Chambers.
The researchers said that previous research had looked at the way parents could affect their children’s susceptibility to cancer and other diseases, but less attention had been paid to the role of part-time carers such as grandparents.
The Glasgow team analysed data from 56 studies undertaken in 18 countries.
Overall, grandparents were found to have an adverse effect – despite meaning well. In many cases, such as rewarding good behaviour with sweets, they were putting the health of their grandchildren at risk with kindness.
November 16, 2017
FDA e-cig campaign
The US Food and Drug Administration says that as part of its efforts to inform young people about, and help protect them from, the dangers of using tobacco products, it is expanding its ‘The Real Cost’ public-education campaign to include what it calls ‘advertising’ about e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS).
‘New messages focus specifically on how nicotine can rewire the developing brain to crave more nicotine,’ it said in a note delivered through the Center for Tobacco Products Connect forum.
‘This is the first time FDA will explicitly address youth use of e-cigarettes through campaign advertising.
‘“The Real Cost” campaign, launched in February 2014, initially focused on reaching millions of 12-to-17-year-olds open to trying smoking or already experimenting with cigarettes.
‘An FDA-supported study by an independent research firm has indicated that exposure to this award-winning campaign between 2014 and 2016 prevented an estimated 350,000 youth ages 11 to 18 from smoking.
‘In light of this success, and considering that more than two million US teens currently use e-cigarettes, FDA is expanding “The Real Cost” to explicitly address youth vaping.’
“Expanding our highly successful public education efforts to include messaging about the dangers of youth use of these products is a critical part of our work to keep all tobacco products out of the hands of kids,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D, was quoted as saying.
See also yesterday’s story: Real Cost campaign unreal.
November 16, 2017
Big falls in daily smoking
About 18 percent of people living within the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are smokers, according to a News-Medical.net story relayed by the TMA.
This figure is included in the latest edition of the ‘Health at a Glance’ report, which is said to be based on the most recent comparable data on the health status of populations and health system performances in the countries of the OECD.
The report indicates, too, that 14 percent of females and 23 percent of males in these countries are smokers.
In Greece, Hungary, Turkey and Indonesia, which have the highest proportions of smokers, more than 25 percent of the population smokes.
In Mexico and Brazil, which have the lowest proportions of smokers, under 10 percent of the population smokes.
The report shows that the highest rates of female smokers occur in Austria, Greece and Hungary, where more than 20 percent of women smoke, while in South Korea, Mexico, China, India and Indonesia the rate of female smoking is under five percent.
Smoking accounts for almost 40 percent of the male populations in a number of countries, including Turkey, China, Indonesia and Russia, while smoking accounts for under 10 percent of the male populations of Iceland and Brazil.
The smoking gender gap is at its lowest in Denmark and Iceland, and at its highest in Indonesia, China and Russia.
According to the report, the biggest falls in daily smoking between 2000 and 2015 occurred in Greece, Hungary, Turkey and Indonesia, while the least change was seen in Mexico and Brazil.
November 15, 2017
Australia under e-pressure
A major international study into electronic cigarettes has prompted healthcare professionals to encourage Australian smokers to switch to vaping, according to a story by Troy Nankervis for Triple M radio.
“For those smokers who won’t or can’t quit, the next best thing would be to switch to vaping,” said Hayden McRobbie, professor of public health interventions at Queen Mary University of London, UK.
McRobbie is a co-author of the Cochrane Review into e-cigarettes, which found that using these devices could help people quit smoking but which conceded the evidence was weak due to limited data.
“I think Australia is missing a huge public health opportunity in its opposition to e-cigarettes,” McRobbie said.
“While the long-term risks are not entirely clear, there is broad consensus now that they are much less harmful than tobacco cigarettes.”
And unlike second-hand smoke, second-hand vapor posed no identified health risks to by-standers, he added.
After consulting with McRobbie, the New Zealand Ministry of Health is set to legalize and regulate the sale of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes from mid-2018.
And now, associate professor Colin Mendelsohn of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of NSW has urged the Australian medical community to follow suit.
“It [is] good to see New Zealand following the scientific evidence and the lead of the UK, where e-cigarettes have now helped over two million smokers quit,” he said.
“The sooner these products are legalized in Australia, the more lives will be saved.”
November 14, 2017