Category: People

Health improvements
A study by BMC Public Health has concluded that health professionals should provide balanced information about the possible short- and long-term positive and negative health effects of electronic cigarette use.
The study, Perceived health effects of vaping among Hungarian adult e-cigarette-only and dual users: a cross-sectional internet survey, was said to have been aimed at exploring self-reported adverse events (AEs) and perceived health changes due to e-cigarette use among Hungarian adult e-cigarette-only users (former smokers who switched completely to e-cigarette use) and dual users (smokers who used e-cigarettes and combustible tobacco cigarettes concomitantly).
It was described as a cross-sectional, web-based survey of 1042 adult Hungarian e-cigarette users conducted in 2015, in which participants reported AEs and changes in physiological functions since they switched from smoking to e-cigarette use or while dually using e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes. Confirmatory factor analysis with covariates was applied to explain perceived health changes due to e-cigarette-only use and dual use.
The results showed that dual users were significantly more likely to report AEs of vaping than were e-cigarette-only users. ‘Experiencing health improvements were significantly more likely among e-cigarette-only users than for dual users for all surveyed physiological functions, the study found.
‘E-cigarette-only users reported larger effects of vaping on sensory, physical functioning, and mental health factors compared to dual users.
‘Self-reported changes in sensory and physical functioning were significantly higher among individuals using e-cigarettes more than a year and people who were past heavy smokers (smoked ≥20 cigarettes per day).
‘Gender was related to sensory improvement only; males reported greater improvement than females.’
The researchers concluded that the majority of e-cigarette-only users reported more perceived beneficial changes in physiological functions and fewer AEs than did dual users.
‘Perceived short-term benefits of e-cigarette use may reinforce users despite the uncertainty of long-term health consequences,’ they concluded.
‘Health professionals should provide balanced information regarding the possible short- and long-term positive and negative health effects of e-cigarette use during consultations with patients.’
March 28, 2019
Tobacco study in Qatar
Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Tobacco Control Center has begun the fieldwork for a study that aims to examine knowledge, attitudes and practices related to tobacco use in Qatar, according to a story in The Gulf Times.
The study, which is thought to be the most comprehensive investigation of its type in the country, will seek input from Qatari citizens and non-Qatari residents, smokers and non-smokers, males and females.
Employees of ministries, government organizations, media outlets, including Al Jazeera and Qatar TV, healthcare workers, and university students are among those being targeted by researchers.
Dr. Ahmad al-Mulla, head of the HMC Tobacco Control Center, said the study had been endorsed by HMC’s Medical Research Center.
He said the main goal of the study was to gather data on the prevalence of smoking and tobacco use among those aged 18 and above, and information on the consumption rates of various tobacco products and paraphernalia, including cigarettes, shisha, sweika (chewing tobacco), pipes, cigars, electronic cigarettes, and electronic shisha.
Researchers will seek input from those who have tried to quit smoking, and will investigate which quit methods are most effective.
The study will address also the relationship between tobacco use and tobacco product advertisements.
Dr al-Mulla said a number of related topics, including opinions on second-hand smoke and the impact of a recent rise in prices of tobacco products would be examined also.
The results of the study, which is expected to involve as many as 6,000 participants, will be released later this year and will be used to inform government policies and tobacco control public health initiatives.
March 27, 2019
E-cig education sought
Vaping groups in the Philippines have urged the Department of Health (DOH) to educate smokers about alternative products, such as electronic cigarettes, to help them quit smoking, according to a story in The Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The appeal was made by The Vapers Philippines (TVP) and the Philippine E-cigarette Industry Association after Public Health England published new evidence on vaping.
“We call on the DOH and local health care professionals to look at the latest evidence on vaping from England, a country which is experiencing tremendous success in reducing adult smoking rates,” Peter Paul Dator, the president of TVP, was quoted as saying.
Dator lauded public health officials in the country for doing a good job in raising public awareness about the health risks associated with smoking.
“Unfortunately, their efforts stop there,” he said. “The public should also be educated about alternative products that can help smokers quit.”
March 27, 2019
A difficult question
A US public health expert has made the point that people – young people in this case – who vape are not tobacco users. They are vapers.
Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, was responding to a press release issued by city attorney Dennis Herrera and supervisor Shamann Walton announcing the introduction of legislation to ban the sale of all electronic cigarettes in the city of San Francisco.
In part, Siegel’s point-by-point response to the press release focuses on the seemingly strange disconnect between the way that e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes are viewed by legislators.
This is the second point of the press release that Siegel addressed:
“San Francisco has never been afraid to lead,” Herrera said, “and we’re certainly not afraid to do so when the health and lives of our children are at stake.”
And this is what Siegel had to say:
‘San Francisco is apparently afraid to lead because they are willing to take the politically expedient step of requiring safety testing for e-cigarettes, but they are not willing to place the same requirement on real cigarettes. In fact, tobacco cigarettes have already had their safety testing and they failed miserably. If San Francisco wants to lead, then why isn’t it taking cigarettes off the shelves?’
Siegel’s The Rest of the Story blog is here.
March 26, 2019
Hyperbole epidemic
US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar and departing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, penned an op-ed in The Washington Post last week warning of a regulatory crackdown on the electronic cigarette industry if teen use didn’t decline, according to a story by Tal Axelrod published at thehill.com.
Gottlieb, who announced his resignation earlier this month, has repeatedly raised concerns about teenage use of e-cigarettes. And the FDA threatened earlier this year to take these products off the market if vaping rates didn’t drop in the coming months.
‘The e-cigarette craze among teenagers has become an epidemic,’ the two wrote in the joint op-ed.
‘We agree with those who believe that e-cigarettes may offer a lower-risk alternative for adult smokers who still want access to nicotine. But the continued availability of this opportunity to adults is being endangered by the e-cigarette industry’s slowness to address the dangers its products pose to teens.
‘While we pursue changes to regulatory policy, we call on the industry – manufacturers and retailers – to step up with meaningful measures to reduce the access and appeal of e-cigarettes to young people.’
March 26, 2019
Rights polluted
Halting the spread of the tobacco ‘epidemic’ worldwide would align with a human right that global leaders should recognise and act upon, according to a story by Sarantis Michalopoulos for euractiv.com quoting public health activists.
“The tobacco industry floods countries with an addictive and lethal product, cigarettes, which kill over seven million people per year,” said Laurent Huber, director of US Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), talking ahead of two anti-tobacco conferences in Bucharest, Romania.
“For this reason, the global health community and some human rights agencies recognise that the tobacco industry violates the rights to life and health and undermines many other rights including children’s rights and women[‘s] rights.”
A Global Forum on Human Rights and a Tobacco-Free World was due to be held today in Romania by the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP) and ASH. It was to be hosted by the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.
In addition, on March 27-29, ENSP is due to hold its 4th International Conference on Tobacco Control, together with the Romanian Society of Pneumology.
Both conferences were said to be aimed at bringing together global leaders in health and human rights in order to co-ordinate the fight against tobacco and upgrade it to the level of a human right.
‘The nexus between tobacco control and recognised human rights is clear, particularly in the case of the rights to health and life recognised in numerous human rights treaties and national constitutions, but encompassing many other rights as well,’ the organisers reportedly said in a statement.
“Human rights norms and obligations can be powerful tools to combat tobacco industry interference in policy-making and litigation.’
March 26, 2019
Crop down “significantly”
Zimbabwe is likely to suffer a “significant” fall in flue-cured tobacco output this year in the wake of cyclone Idai, according to a story in The Chronicle quoting the CEO of the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB), Dr Andrew Matibiri.
The cyclone was said to have struck most parts of the provinces of Manicaland and Mashonaland East.
Matibiri said an assessment was underway to establish the damage that had been caused.
But it was known that a lot of farmers in Manicaland and parts of Mashonaland East had lost tobacco in the field, and that about 550 flue-cured barns had collapsed.
“As a result of the adverse effects of the calamity, there is going to be a significant decline of tobacco output this year,” Matibiri said. “We are yet to account how much we are likely to lose as a result of the disaster.”
The Chronicle story said that last year Zimbabwe had produced a record flue-cured tobacco crop of 253 million kg.
This year’s tobacco selling season had been opened by Vice President Kembo Mohadi on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a story in The Sunday Mail had it that tobacco sales were expected to pick up at tobacco auction floors from today after the Government scrapped, with immediate effect, a two percent Intermediated Money Transfer Tax on tobacco sales and confirmed that farmers would get half of their earnings in US dollars.
Sales had been slow since the opening of the floors with some farmers reportedly holding on to their tobacco because of dissatisfaction with the prices being offered.
March 25, 2019
Pregnant finding
Researchers at the Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, say that tobacco smokers who become pregnant cannot protect their fetuses sufficiently by undertaking a quit-tobacco-smoking course, according to a story by Stephen Gadd for The Copenhagen Post.
“When a pregnant woman uses nicotine chewing-gum or any other form of nicotine substitute in connection with stopping smoking, she risks damaging her fetus as much as if she’d continued to smoke,” associate professor and brain researcher Jesper Tobias Andreasen, was said to have told BT tabloid.
The negative effects were said to be caused by nicotine’s reducing the flow of blood through the placenta leading to the fetus not receiving enough oxygen to the brain. This could cause conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, depression and addictive tendencies later in life.
Andreasen points out that a ‘stop smoking’ course is all very well but the only safe way to do it is to go ‘cold turkey’ – without any form of nicotine substitutes.
Vaping was said also to present a risk to the fetus because the levels of nicotine in the liquids used contained ‘very variable amounts and often more than normal cigarettes’.
Up to now, the Copenhagen research has been carried out on mice. But Andreasen said that it was known “from extensive studies that people who have been exposed to nicotine in the womb show a higher propensity to ADHD, anxiety, depression and drug abuse”.
The researchers say they intend to publish their findings in a scientific journal within the next couple of months.

March 25, 2019
Problem cannot be patched
Taxpayers in the state of South Australia will pay for nicotine substitutes for prisoners as the state moves to make its jails smoke-free, according to a story by Rebecca Puddy at abc.net.au.
The Department for Correctional Services has estimated that 80 percent of South Australia’s 2,800 prisoner-population comprises smokers, with 75 percent smoking daily.
Under the current smoking rules, prisoners can buy their own cigarettes and tobacco from canteens.
A $2 million bill for nicotine patches and lozenges will form part of the $6.2 million cost to taxpayers of keeping cigarettes out of the state’s prisons in the years to 2022, with additional funding set aside for health and security measures, staff costs and quit support.
The smoking ban has received bipartisan support and strong backing from Cancer Council SA and the Public Service Association, the union representing the state’s prison guards.
Under the current structure, SA Health pays for NRT in prisons that have not enacted a smoking ban but will hand over this cost to the Department for Correctional Services when the ban is introduced at the end of the year.
Under the rules to be introduced as prisons become smoke-free, taxpayers will foot the bill for the first six weeks of a nicotine replacement program, with prisoners required to pay one quarter of the cost for the next three weeks, and 50 percent of the cost for the final three weeks.
Cancer Council SA spokeswoman Alana Sparrow said the Government had worked with stakeholders to develop a “good evidence-based approach”, learning from the experiences of other states.
“We have looked at evaluations in different states and territories – in some it has worked extremely well but we are also learning from the experiences in other states like Victoria,” she said.
A 2018 study of former prisoners in Queensland found 94 percent relapsed to smoking within two months of their release, with 72 percent doing so on the day of their release
March 22, 2019
Hybrid device well received
KT&G sold more than 200,000 of its lil Hybrid devices within 80 days of their launch in South Korea, according to a story by Baek Byung-yeul for The Korea Times.
The new device is a hybrid in that it uses both electronic-cigarette and heat-not-burn (HNB) technologies, which means that the consumer uses both e-liquid cartridges and tobacco sticks at the same time.
The company’s lil Hybrid device, its MIIX tobacco sticks and e-liquid cartridges were launched in December.
KT&G said yesterday that sales of the hybrid device were growing faster than those of the original lil HNB device, which took about 100 days to pass the 200,000 mark.
Sales of its lil HNB device hit one million in October 2018 and 1.5 million this month.
South Korea’s e-cigarette market has seen growing competition in recent years and industry insiders believe the race to take the lead will peak this year because JUUL Labs is expected to roll out its e-cigarette.
Lim Wang-seop, the chief of KT&G’s innovative product department, was quoted as saying that his company had been developing new products that could compete with Juul.
The e-cigarette market accounted for only 3.13 percent of the entire tobacco market in South Korea, he said, but KT&G expected this share to grow to about 14 percent to 15 percent after the introduction of Juul.
Nevertheless, Cho Sang-hoon, an analyst at Samsung Securities, was quoted as saying that KT&G wouldn’t be negatively affected by the market changes.
KT&G’s share in the regular cigarette market would grow by about one percent to 62.9 percent this year, while its share in the e-cigarette market would increase to about 30 percent this year, from about 17 percent in 2018.
March 22, 2019