Philip Morris International and Scuderia Ferrari yesterday entered a new phase in their 45-year partnership with the unveiling of Mission Winnow, a new global initiative to create engagement around the role of science, technology and innovation as a powerful force for good in any industry.
The global initiative is taking to the tracks this week at the Formula 1 2018 Honda Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.
“Through Mission Winnow we want to let the world know how we have changed, to share our pride in the transformation that the people of PMI have achieved, as well as our dedication to rigorous science and innovation that can lead to a better future,” said André Calantzopoulos, PMI’s CEO.
“We will use this global platform as a window into the new PMI and to challenge preconceptions, as we know there are many who may have doubts about us and our motivations. Our partnership with Scuderia Ferrari gives us the opportunity to build on many encouraging individual conversations with critics and supporters alike and reach out to a broad audience to engage at scale.”
‘The word “winnow” (pronounced: “win”– “oh”) was selected because it perfectly describes the meticulous and disciplined route that PMI is following to achieve its ambitious vision of a smoke-free future,’ PMI said in a note posted on its website. ‘The word – and PMI’s vision – is about focus, transparency, care and single-minded determination.
‘”Winnow” originally referred to the removal of chaff from grain, but it came to be used more broadly to describe the separating out of the unnecessary, the extraction of the good and distinguishing what is true from what is inaccurate or misleading. For PMI, this is critically important in a world of information overload.
‘The company also believes it is critically important to adhere to an uncompromising commitment of continuous improvement through the dedicated and diligent pursuit of scientific and engineering excellence with an intense focus on details. This commitment and focus are creating a paradigm shift in the tobacco industry toward a better future.’
“Mission Winnow encapsulates our commitment to strive for better in everything we do,” said Calantzopoulos. “To winnow, or to discard old approaches, is what we at PMI are doing – we take learnings from past mistakes to shape our future.”
PMI said in its note that, in driving toward the future, it had chosen a path that was in all aspects very complex and faced many challenges. Like Scuderia Ferrari, the company had set a course forward, and there was no turning back: PMI had to progress constantly and rapidly, examining and analyzing the way ahead by learning every day and adjusting to improve at the next corner.
“Mission Winnow is about how we are transforming as a company, what we believe in and the way we work to enable a better future,” said Miroslaw Zielinski, president science and innovation at PMI. “Scuderia Ferrari is the ideal partner for Mission Winnow because of the team’s passion for innovation and drive to constantly improve in the quest for victory.
“We are launching Mission Winnow in the F1 circuit because motorsport fans understand there is no reverse gear in racing, only forward thinking and we believe they will want to share this vision.”
PMI said that Mission Winnow provided an insider’s view of two companies that operated in very different fields but had a great deal in common. ‘For both companies, success hinges on the passion of their people for the highest standards of performance in pursuit of overarching ambitions,’ it said. ‘Mission Winnow does not and will never advertise or promote any tobacco products. Mission Winnow is not about what, it is about how and why.
More information on Mission Winnow is at: www.missionwinnow.com or @missionwinnow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Category: Science
PMI on track
Innovation the key
Philip Morris International has said that, given the right conditions, it could stop selling combustible cigarettes in less than a century.
PMI yesterday published a position paper giving its views on the eighth session of the Conference of Parties (COP8) to the World Health Organization Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (FCTC).
‘With more than one billion people expected to be smoking in 2025, PMI is urging the WHO, the hundreds of delegates convening in Geneva this week, and the wider public health community to embrace the potential of innovative alternatives to cigarettes in order to achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals for non-communicable diseases as quickly as possible,’ PMI said.
PMI acknowledged that smoking prevalence was in decline but argued that the pace of that decline could be much faster.
‘The landscape of tobacco and nicotine products has evolved significantly over recent years,’ the company said. ‘Not all tobacco products are the same with respect to their health risks. Moreover, rapid innovation offers opportunities to accelerate the downward trajectory of smoking prevalence.’
PMI said that, ultimately, it aimed to stop selling cigarettes entirely and was confident that this could happen in less than a century if smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke were proactively encouraged to switch to less harmful alternatives, which already exist but were either not well known or in some cases restricted.
‘Where these products have been adopted, for instance, in countries such as Japan and the UK, there have been unprecedented declines in cigarette sales,’ PMI said. Progress in these countries signals the potential for great change across the globe and is the core reason why PMI has publicly committed its future to being smoke-free, and continues to develop new science-based technologies and innovations that offer better alternatives to men and women who would otherwise continue to smoke.’
PMI’s policy-making recommendations published yesterday include:- Policies must continue to dissuade minors, ex-smokers, and non-smokers from using tobacco- and nicotine-containing products, while making better alternatives to cigarettes available to adults who smoke.
- Tobacco control policies should encompass tobacco-harm reduction strategies as well as supply and demand measures that encourage smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke to switch to better alternatives.
- There should be thorough, independent verification of manufacturers’ products and science to assess how ENDS [electronic nicotine delivery systems] and novel and emerging tobacco and nicotine products can support policies to reduce smoking prevalence.
- There should be national and global surveillance systems to study market trends. This surveillance should include data on product usage, including switching rates associated with different tobacco and nicotine products, to enable accurate reporting of smoking prevalence and the use of ENDS and novel and emerging tobacco products.
- Incentives should encourage investment and continuous research and development of less harmful alternatives, including the establishment of quality and performance standards for smoke-free products.
- Mechanisms should be established to enable transparent interaction and consultation between governments and producers of emerging tobacco and nicotine products.
The policy paper is at: https://www.pmi.com/resources/docs/default-source/newsroom/pmi-cop-position-statement.pdf?sfvrsn=41ff9cb5_10.
Juul sales rocket-powered
US sales of the electronic cigarette Juul rose from 2.2 million in 2016 to 16.2 million in 2017, according to a HealthDay story quoting the results of a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP).
The CDCP study took in e-cigarette purchases from regular retail stores, but did not include sales through the internet or from vape shops; so the sales figures comprise an underestimate.
Juul had captured the biggest share of the US e-cigarette market as of December 2017, accounting for nearly one in three of the e-cigarettes sold nationwide.
Juul is said to have among the highest nicotine content of any e-cigarette sold in the US, a concern for the CDCP, which, according to the HealthDay story, says that nicotine is ‘highly addictive’ and can harm brain development in teens and young adults.
The Food and Drug Administration on September 12 demanded that, within 60 days, five electronic-cigarette manufacturers, including Juul Labs, accounting for 97 percent of the market for these products, come up with robust ways of addressing what the agency described as an ‘epidemic’ of teenage vaping or face market restrictions on their products.
‘There are no redeeming benefits of e-cigarettes for young people,’ Corinne Graffunder, director of the CDCP’s Office on Smoking and Health, said in an agency news release. ‘The use of certain USB-shaped e-cigarettes is especially dangerous among youth because these products contain extremely high levels of nicotine, which can harm the developing adolescent brain.’
The CDC findings were published on October 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
HealthDay reported that Juul had issued a statement on the same day defending its product.
‘Juul Labs is focused on its mission to improve the lives of the world’s one billion adult smokers,’ the company said in its statement. ‘When adult smokers find a satisfying alternative to cigarettes, they tell other adult smokers. Juul Labs has helped more than one million Americans switch from cigarettes.’Understanding sought
The US Food and Drug Administration said yesterday it had seized from Juul Labs more than a thousand pages of documents related to the company’s sales and marketing practices, according to a story by Ankur Banerjee and Tamara Mathias for Reuters.
The seizures were said to have come during a surprise inspection.
The inspection, completed on Friday, followed a request in April for documents that the FDA believed would help it better understand the high levels of Juul’s appeal and use among young people.
The FDA said it had conducted also inspections of several of Juul’s contract manufacturing units earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Juul Labs CEO Kevin Burns was quoted as saying in a statement that the company had handed over to the FDA since April more than 50,000 pages of documents that supported its public statements, before adding that the meeting with the regulator had been constructive and transparent.
“We want to be part of the solution in preventing underage use, and we believe it will take industry and regulators working together to restrict youth access,” said Burns.Air quality little affected
Japan Tobacco Inc. says that non-combustible T-Vapor products should be treated differently to combustible cigarettes when looking at issues surrounding indoor air quality. JT sees the reduced-risk product market as comprising several categories, one of which is the T-Vapor, or Heated Tobacco and Tobacco Infused-Vapor category.
In a note posted on its website, JT said it had conducted a study to observe the effects of T-Vapor products on indoor air quality in the designated smoking room and the non-smoking area of a restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, and that it had found:- No significant increases in the concentration of suspended particulate matter, nicotine or other constituents monitored in the non-smoking area of the restaurant.
- That the use of T-Vapor products in the designated smoking room with door and common ventilation facilities had no effects on the indoor air quality in the non-smoking area.
The study, which was said to have used combustible cigarettes and two types of T-Vapor products, was supervised by Professor Emeritus Keiichi Arashidani, of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, and carried out last month in the designated smoking room and the non-smoking area of a typical restaurant in Tokyo.
The study measured 15 air constituents, including items defined in the act on Maintenance of Sanitation in Buildings: suspended particulate matter, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde; indicators of indoor air quality: TVOC(total volatile organic compounds); VOC (volatile organic compounds): 1,3-butadiene, isoprene, benzene and toluene; carbonyls: acetaldehyde, acrolein and crotonaldehyde; marker compounds of environmental tobacco smoke: 3-ethenylpyridine and nicotine; and major ingredients of T-Vapor products: propylene glycol, glycerin.
JT said that the study results showed that the use of T-vapor products in designated smoking rooms did not affect indoor air quality in the non-smoking areas under the study conditions.
‘We believe that designated smoking rooms for T-Vapor products with door and common ventilation facility have no effects on indoor air quality in non-smoking area,’ it said.COP8 – a 'great opportunity'
An international meeting of tobacco control representatives this week presents a great opportunity for UK delegates to promote the UK’s dramatic success with electronic cigarettes, according to the New Nicotine Alliance (NNA).
The eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP8) to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, on October 1-6.
In a press note issued on Friday, the NNA said the FCTC’s COP8 summit in Geneva presented a great opportunity for UK delegates to promote the UK’s dramatic success with e-cigarettes. The NNA said it was calling on UK delegates to communicate to global public health representatives the clear and unequivocal message that e-cigarettes and other alternative nicotine products were far safer than combustible tobacco and should be treated as such.
“E-cigarettes are a proven safer alternative to smoking and the UK boasts over 1.7 million former smokers who have converted from combustible tobacco to exclusively vaping instead,” NNA chair, Sarah Jakes, was quoted as saying.
“In the UK, the government has wisely recognised the significant benefits that tobacco harm reduction strategies can achieve and, as a result of positive messaging towards vaping with campaigns such as Stoptober, has seen smoking prevalence dramatically plummet in recent years.
“COP8 is a perfect opportunity for the UK to showcase this success and share our positive experience with the world.
“How can it be right that developed nations are enjoying great results in reducing the use of combustible tobacco by making safer alternatives available to smokers but sit by as less affluent nations are being railroaded into banning them by the WHO?”
The NNA pointed out that the UK government’s Tobacco Control Plan had committed to back innovative products in its drive to encourage smokers to quit. The government’s recommendations were evidence-based and designed to maximise the benefits of safer nicotine delivery.
Meanwhile, it added, the WHO recognised tobacco harm reduction as a guiding principle of its FCTC, so it was quite wrong that it currently invited nations to prohibit the use of these products.
“The WHO likes to talk about the right to health, but why is a smoker in India or Africa less entitled to access products which could help them quit smoking than a smoker in the UK or Canada?”, asked Jakes. “Furthermore, we have heard worrying reports that the EU is planning to petition the FCTC to call for a global ban on e-cigarette advertising. It would be scandalous if the UK delegation is complicit in such an unwise move and goes against the government’s commitment to improve availability of innovative products. What is the point of talking positively of safer alternatives while simultaneously stopping smokers from seeing any publicity about them?
“In Geneva, the UK’s representatives have a golden opportunity to promote the UK’s success with safer nicotine products.
“We provide the FCTC with generous funding to reduce smoking rates in underdeveloped nations. We would therefore urge the government to use the influence our financial contribution brings and do the right thing. That is to reject prohibition of harm reduction which less affluent nations feel obliged to implement due to WHO misinformation, urge the FCTC to adhere to its own articles on the subject, and resist restrictions on promotion of less harmful alternatives to smoking”Registration deadline nears
On-line registration for the 2018 CORESTA (Co-operation Centre for Scientific Research Relative to Tobacco) Congress in China is due to close at midnight local time on October 7, according to a note issued by the organization’s Secretariat.
Registration is available through www.corestakunming2018.com, and assistance is available from Lancia (lancia@coresta2018.org) or Demi (demi@coresta2018.org).
The Congress is due to be hosted by the China National Tobacco Corporation at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, on October 22-26.
The theme of the 2018 Congress is Science and Innovation: addressing the needs.
According to a previous CORESTA press note; in line with this theme, CORESTA’s Scientific Commission wants the event to be an opportunity for delegates to share their experience with the broad scientific community, within and beyond the tobacco perspective.
‘Workshops will be arranged to foster open dialogue on crop protection, biotechnologies, product risk assessment and biomarkers,’ the note said.
‘This approach will provide valuable information to all stakeholders in the increasingly challenging regulatory environment.
‘Latest updates and scientific achievements and findings will be presented to the benefit of both experienced and new scientists.’Research funding
The US Food and Drug Administration says that the Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science’s (TCORS) 2.0 program will continue to provide data on the following scientific domains related to its regulatory authority for tobacco products:
- Approaches that test the toxicity of tobacco smoke, aerosol, or specific constituents
- Effects of tobacco product characteristics on addiction and abuse liability
- Short- and long-term health effects of tobacco products
- Understanding of knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to tobacco product use
- Understanding of how to effectively communicate the health effects of tobacco products
- Influences of tobacco marketing
- Understanding of the impact of potential FDA regulatory actions.
‘Findings from TCORS research are expected to inform the FDA’s mission to protect public health through regulation of the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products,’ the FDA said in a note issued through its Center for Tobacco Products.
‘The TCORS program is one example of research supported by the Tobacco Regulatory Science Program, a partnership between FDA and NIH [National Institutes of Health] to foster tobacco regulatory research.’
Meanwhile, in the same note, the FDA said that ‘the following research investigators and organizations had been awarded TCORS for fiscal years 2018-2022’:- Thomas E. Eissenberg. Ph.D., and Alison Breland, Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
- Stanton A. Glantz, Ph.D., University of California-San Francisco
- Stephen T. Higgins, Ph.D., University of Vermont and State Agriculture College, Burlington
- Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, Ph.D., and Stephanie S. O’Malley, Ph.D., Yale University, New Haven
- Rafael Meza, Ph.D., and David T. Levy, Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- Richard J. O’Connor, Ph.D., and Maciej Goniewicz, Ph.D., PharmD., Roswell Park Cancer Institute Corporation, Buffalo
- Mary Ann Pentz, Ph.D., and Adam M. Leventhal, Ph.D., University of Southern California, Los Angeles
- Rose M. Robertson, M.D., and Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D., American Heart Association, Dallas
- Andrew A. Strasser, Ph.D., and Cristine Delnevo, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Awarded by the NIH with funding from FDA, this second round of TCORS represented a significant investment in federally funded research, with more than $151 million total funding planned for the next five years, the FDA said.
‘With co-ordination from NIH’s Office of Disease Prevention, these awards are administered by three NIH institutes — the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute,’ it said.Vaping evidence highlighted
An Irish member of the EU Parliament has asked the Commission whether it will be taking account of the contents of a UK parliamentary report and a letter signed by four academics – both of which come out in favor of vaping – when the Commission produces its implementation report on the Tobacco Products Directive.
In a preamble to his questions, Luke Ming Flanagan thanked the Commission for its answer to his previous question on vaping and the Tobacco Products Directive (E-002293/2018).
Flanagan then asked, with reference to the Commission’s statement that it continuously monitored developments, whether it was aware of the recent all-party UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report that was published on August 17 and that came out strongly in favor of vaping.
He asked also; was the Commission aware of the submission to the World Health Organization of a letter signed by four top academics, again outlining, in great detail, the case in favor of vaping.
And he asked whether the Commission could confirm that it would now take those reports into consideration in the implementation report it was required to submit in 2021, in line with Article 28(1) of the directive.
The Commission is due to reply in writing.It's been a long time coming
Fontem Ventures today filed comments on Health Canada’s proposed list of statements for use in the promotion of vaping products.
“As outlined in our filing, we think Health Canada has chosen the correct and responsible way to help smokers make the best, evidence-based decisions if they consider switching to vaping,” said Ross Parker, Fontem’s director of corporate affairs and communications.
Fontem is launching its myblu pod-based e-vapor device and myblu Intense flavors in retail outlets on a trial basis in Quebec, Canada, this month, ahead of a nation-wide launch in January.
In its filing, Fontem said that any promotional messages should reflect both the risks and the benefits of the category so that adult smokers can make informed choices.
‘Such information should not exaggerate risks to deter use, and Fontem believes Health Canada’s proposed statements strike a good balance,’ Fontem said in a note posted on its website.
‘If adopted, these statements would be the first authorised promotional statements to recognise and maximise the opportunities of vaping products in tobacco harm reduction.’
“More jurisdictions should follow Canada’s lead,” said Parker. “Informed consumers will make better choices, which could lead to better public health outcomes.”
Health Canada issued a request for comments on September 4, and said it was exploring options for future regulations that would permit the use of certain comparative statements in vaping product promotion, with the objective of preventing consumers from being misled about the health hazards of vaping products.
The selected permitted statements would be supported by science and expressed in clear terms to ensure that tobacco users were better informed about the relative health effects of using vaping products.
The statements proposed by Health Canada are:
* If you are a smoker, switching completely to vaping is a much less harmful option.
* While vaping products emit toxic substances, the amount is significantly lower than in tobacco smoke.
* By switching completely to vaping products, smokers are exposed to a small fraction of the 7,000 chemicals found in tobacco smoke.
* Switching completely from combustible tobacco cigarettes to e-cigarettes significantly reduces users’ exposure to numerous toxic and cancer-causing substances.
* Completely replacing your cigarette with a vaping product will significantly reduce your exposure to numerous toxic and cancer-causing substances.
* Switching completely from smoking to e-cigarettes will reduce harms to your health.
* Completely replacing your cigarette with an e-cigarette will reduce harms to your health.
Fontem’s response to Health Canada, including its suggested statements, can be found here.
