Category: People

Nicotine poses little risk
A report from the Australian Poisons Centres has confirmed that accidental ingestion of nicotine e-liquid is extremely rare and is usually mild and self-limiting, according to the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association (ATHRA).
In a note posted on its website, ATHRA said the findings supported the case for legalising and regulating nicotine for vaping as a safer alternative to smoking.
The study in the Medical Journal of Australia yesterday reported on 202 calls to Australian Poisons Centres for e-cigarette and e-liquid exposure over an eight-year period from 2009 to 2016. Calls were said to have increased as vaping became more popular, but still represented only 0.015 percent of all calls received – fewer than one in five thousand calls.
Thirty eight percent of the calls were for children, and there were 12 cases of deliberate self-administration by adults for self-harm.
Most subjects had only mild symptoms. Twelve had moderate symptoms, usually vomiting and sedation. There were no serious reactions or deaths reported.
ATHRA said the Australian findings were similar to Poisons Centre reports from the US and Europe, which also found that accidental exposure to nicotine e-liquid was usually mild and short lived.
‘Although nicotine is potentially toxic, serious reactions from accidental ingestion are rare and most cases make a full and quick recovery,’ the ATHRA note said. ‘Most swallowed nicotine is not absorbed into the bloodstream and much of the remainder is broken down rapidly in the liver.
‘Suicide attempts with even very large doses usually result in prompt vomiting. Thankfully there is usually a full recovery but very rare fatalities have occurred in adults and children.
‘Nicotine poses no risk to vapers if used in the standard doses as intended.’
January 29, 2019
Malawi looks to cannabis
Malawi’s legislators will consider in March a bill to legalize medical cannabis and hemp, as the country looks to reduce its reliance on tobacco, according to a VOA News story relayed by the TMA.
Tobacco was said to account for 13 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and 60 percent of its foreign exchange earnings.
Lesotho, South Africa, and Zimbabwe have already adopted similar measures.
Boniface Kadzamira, a member of Malawi’s parliament who has long pushed for the legalization of cannabis said, “we were the first in this part of Africa to start discussing this thing”. “Those countries that came after us have gone ahead of us and have already started issuing licenses,” he added.
According to the VOA story, anti-drug campaigners worry legalizing medical marijuana will encourage more recreational use but they’re facing an uphill battle against those who argue to regulate the trade and help Malawi’s economy grow.
January 29, 2019
Wings on, wings off
All China’s domestic airlines have been ordered to prohibit immediately smoking and vaping in cockpits, and to punish severely crew members who violate the ban, according to a China Daily story citing a notice issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
The CAAC has ordered airlines to suspend crew members who smoke or vape in cockpits for 12 months for a first offense and for 36 months for repeat offenses. Other crew members who fail to intervene when a member of a cockpit crew is smoking [or, presumably, vaping] were said to be liable to a six-months’ suspension.
The CAA said that if smoking [and vaping] on a plane resulted in serious consequences, the penalty would be more severe and would be recorded in crew members’ files.
Smoking was banned in the passenger cabin and toilets of all aircraft in October 2017, but individual airlines had the option to permit smoking in the cockpit for two years. The recent cockpit ban accelerates the original time frame.
Originally, the rules would not have taken effect until the end of this year, said Zhang Qihuai, a Beijing lawyer specializing in civil aviation. But only Chongqing Airlines and China West Air had implemented the cockpit ban.
In July, news reports said that an Air China co-pilot who was vaping during a flight from Hong Kong to Dalian, Liaoning province, wanted to turn off the air circulation fan. But he switched off the aircraft’s air conditioning by accident, which diffused smoke [presumably vapor] throughout the cabin and led to the deployment of oxygen masks and an emergency descent.
The aircraft climbed to its cruising altitude and the flight continued once the problem was identified.
There were 153 passengers and nine crew onboard. No injuries were reported.
Zhang said he believed this incident triggered the early enforcement of the regulation.
“If heavy smokers among the passengers can forgo their habit during flights, there is no reason to make the crew an exception, especially since they are responsible for the safety of all on board,” Zhang said.
January 28, 2019
Jail is no answer
A woman has been sentenced to one month in prison by a magistrate’s court in Kota Baru for smoking outside a supermarket two years ago, according to a story in The New Straits Times.
Magistrate Izzudin Mohd Shukri handed down the sentence after Nor Faezah Hamzah, 34, failed to pay a RM1,000 fine imposed on her earlier.
She was charged under a regulation that provides for a fine of up to RM10,000 and or a jail term of up to two years.
An assistant health and environment officer and an assistant public health officer were said to have seen the woman smoking a cigarette at the supermarket’s parking lot. They took the cigarette from her and sent it to the state Chemistry Department where it was analyzed and found to contain tobacco.
The accused, who was unrepresented in court, asked that her term of imprisonment start from the date she was arrested. “I request for a lighter sentence as I have to take care of my 16-year-old child,” she said.
However, prosecution officer Mohd Nor Hussin, from the state Health Department, requested a stiffer penalty to deter the accused and members of the public from committing the same offence.
January 28, 2019
Quitting made cheaper
Smokers in Belgium will from February 1 pay a lot less than previously to try anti-smoking medication, and they will be reimbursed for up to three courses of treatments every five years, according to a story in The Brussels Times.
Under the new scheme, smokers will be able to get a starter kit that they are required to try for two weeks before they are granted access to a complete course of anti-smoking medication.
The kit sells for €49.95, which, currently, the smokers must pay.
But from the start of next month, those under a preferential regime will have to pay €9.80, while everyone else will have to pay €14.80.
Also from the start of next month, smokers will be reimbursed for up to three complete courses of treatment every five years, whereas currently they can be reimbursed only for two treatments in that time period.
January 28, 2019
HNB gaining share
Heat-not-burn (HNB) cigarettes accounted for 9.6 percent of South Korea’s tobacco market in 2018, up from 2.2 percent in 2017, according to a Yonhap News Agency story citing figures published today by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Overall, sales of combustible and HNB cigarettes were said to have fallen by 1.5 percent in 2018 from those of a year earlier following anti-smoking interventions by the government and higher prices.
Smokers bought 3.47 billion 20-piece cigarette packs last year, compared with 3.52 billion packs the previous year.
Sales of combustible cigarettes fell by 8.9 percent year-on-year to 3.14 billion packs in 2018, while those of heat-not-burn cigarettes increased from 79 million packs in 2017 to 332 million packs in 2018.
The 2018 sales figure was said to have been down by 20.4 percent on that of 2014, the year before the retail price of cigarettes was increased overnight on January 1, 2015, by 80 percent, from 2,500 won (US$2.20) per pack to 4,500 won, mainly on the back of a tax increase.
In 2016, the Government required tobacco companies to put graphic health warnings on the upper parts of both the main faces of cigarette packs.
Meanwhile, the government collected 11.8 trillion won in taxes from cigarette sales in 2018, up by five percent from the previous year’s 11.2 trillion won.
January 25, 2019
Dire warnings given
A medical specialist in Papua New Guinea has given to a local newspaper a wide-ranging review of the health problems caused by tobacco smoking.
The Nation said that, according to a senior consultant at the Pacific International Hospital, smoking killed 3,500 Papua New Guineans annually through lung cancer.
Obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Mathias Sapuri was quoted as saying that tobacco products contained acetone, tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide, and were harmful to the entire body.
The risk of developing a variety of health problems was said to increase with smoking.
Sapuri said unhealthy teeth, persistent cough, bronchitis, mood stimulation, anxiety and irritability were some of the common immediate effects of smoking.
But over time, the damage to lungs led to increased infections, with smokers having a higher risk of developing chronic non-reversible lung conditions.
“Smoking damages the entire cardiovascular system of the human body,” Sapuri said.
“Nicotine causes blood vessels to tighten which restricts the flow of blood. The ongoing narrowing can cause peripheral artery disease.
“Smoking also raises blood pressure, weakens blood vessel walls and increases blood clots which raise the risk of stroke.”
Sapuri said smokers were at an increased risk of worsening heart disease if they had already had heart bypass surgery, a heart attack, or a stent placed in a blood vessel.
Smoking was also detrimental to those who did not smoke; so children whose parents smoked were more prone to coughing, wheezing, and asthma attacks than children whose parents did not.
January 25, 2019
A plea for civility
In the tobacco harm reduction debate, civility has gone up in smoke, according to a vaping advocate writing at filtermag.org.
‘In the pursuit of reducing the harms caused by cigarettes, those of us who advocate for vaping as a public-health harm reduction tool are constantly battling with bullying and harassment, “justified” by moral outrage,’ said Dr. Carrie Wade, who is a senior fellow and the harm reduction policy director for the R Street Institute.
Wade said that during her first foray into this arena, at the US E-Cig summit in 2017, she was surprised at the level of vitriol she witnessed, at the jeering and boos as different opinions, approaches and research were presented.
Since then she had experienced such attacks, with the most recent on January 15 when she and her fellow panelists were invited by a state tax board to present on tobacco harm reduction and epidemiology, only to be openly mocked when answering questions from board members.
But Wade admitted that there were bad actors on both sides. ‘Those who advocate for, or produce and sell e-cigarettes or e-liquids, are also too often guilty of incivility,’ she said…
‘Accounts of harm reduction advocates behaving badly are often shared, and there is vitriol on both sides — just look at any Twitter debate around the issue (and yes, I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve taken the bait a couple times myself). It’s easy for those of us on either side of the debate to imagine that the unprofessionalism is one-sided, but that is not the case.’
Wade pointed out that the major charity Cancer Research UK (CRUK) had recently adopted strict anti-bullying and harassment policies – though these had not been born out of a need to protect those who espoused tobacco harm reduction.
‘Anti-bullying and harassment policies should perhaps become much more widespread,’ she said. ‘After all, progress rarely happens without some degree of conflict, but I would argue that it never happens without a willingness to remain civil, to find common ground and compromises. The US surgeon general has correctly pointed this out, stating that personal attacks make future discussion or collaboration unlikely.’
January 25, 2019
Joint approach to health
With the right discussion and oversight, corporations can be reliable partners in helping governments deal with some of today’s public health issues, according to a note posted on Philip Morris International’s website.
The company says that it has looked at the dynamics between consumers, corporations and authorities across a range of global public health issues through the lens of a new report, Public Health—Much Harder than Rocket Science, which is based on a recent global survey conducted by IPSOS.
‘Consumers all over the world want their governments to do better at solving major public health issues, according to the IPSOS survey of 31,000 respondents across 31 countries commissioned by PMI,’ the note says.
‘In the survey, respondents were asked how important they believed it is for governments to dedicate time and resources to nine global health issues: air pollution, mental health, STDs [sexually-transmitted diseases], healthier food products, opioid abuse, smoking and alcohol abuse, unwanted pregnancies and obesity.
‘When asked about the role of technology and innovation in addressing these issues, 91 per cent of respondents believed technology and innovation had an important role to play. ‘However, respondents did not evaluate government performance highly; … 56 per cent believed the authorities had done a poor job of ensuring access to the latest innovations and advancements that can improve public health.
‘Introduced by PMI in Davos, Public Health—Much Harder than Rocket Science, reviews further the discussions surrounding these important public health issues and the interplays between public vs. private impact and human behavior. It concludes that a collaborative approach is possible: Corporations themselves may well be able to help address some of the public health issues relating to their products. And, authorities would be well advised to tap into corporate resources and use their ingenuity and self-interest to create compelling solutions. With the right discussion and oversight, corporations can be reliable partners in helping governments deal with some of today’s public health issues.’
“Given the scale of these public health challenges, it’s unrealistic to expect advice and exhortations from health authorities alone to make the difference,” argues Marian Salzman, senior vice president, global communications at PMI. “To truly help large numbers of people make the changes they want and need will take a combination of evidence-based public policy initiatives, new technologies and new products.
“The public deserve – and are asking – to hear about better possibilities, regardless of where they have come from.”
More information is at: PMI.com.
All the data can be viewed at: https://www.pmi.com/media-center/news/public-supports-alternatives-to-cigarettes.
January 23, 2019
Tobacco business attacked
An oncologist of Melbourne, Australia, is on a mission to break the links between the tobacco and global-finance industries, according to an interview conducted by Madeleine Morris at abc.net.au.
Morris, in introducing the oncologist, Dr. Bronwyn King, who is also the CEO of Tobacco Free Portfolios, said that the global finance industry still worked hand-in-glove with the tobacco industry. Big insurers insured it, big banks lent to it, and many superannuation funds invested their members’ money in it.
In fact, King was prompted to act when, 10 years ago, her financial adviser told her that her superannuation fund – along with most others – invested in cigarette companies.
“If we invented the finance system today, banks wouldn’t automatically lend money to tobacco companies, and super funds or global pension funds wouldn’t invest in tobacco companies and insurers wouldn’t insure them,” King was quoted as saying. “We simply have to undo what has been established as a status quo…
“Seven million people across the world have died as a result of tobacco in the past year alone. Just imagine if a brand-new industry was launched today and, by the end of next June, that industry’s products had killed seven million people.” [The interview appeared to be dated January 22; so it wasn’t clear why it was implied that ‘next June’ was a year away.]
Morris said that, during the past year King had been around the world six times; and to New York and Paris five times each. “She’s on a mission to convince major financial institutions to drop their investments in cigarette companies,” said Morris.
The extracts from the interview are not included in chronological order above. The interview, as presented, is here.
January 23, 2019