Tag: United States

  • Vuse is boycott target

    Vuse is boycott target

    A farmworker labor group often at odds with Reynolds American Inc. voted unanimously on Saturday to conduct a national boycott of the company’s Vuse, the US’ top-selling electronic cigarette, according to a story by Richard Craver for the Winston-Salem Journal.

    As of August, Vuse, which is sold at more than 111,000 US retail outlets, had a top market share of 29.8 percent.

    Catherine Crowe, a spokeswoman for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee of FLOC, said the potential boycott of Vuse was designed to dent Reynolds’ revenue stream since “it is a fairly new product and market for Reynolds”.

    “Reynolds has still not signed an agreement with FLOC that would affect real change on the ground by guaranteeing farmworkers freedom of association and implementing a grievance mechanism that farmworkers could use to resolve issues without fear of retaliation,” Crowe said.

    Since 2007, FLOC has conducted occasional adversarial inquiries during the question-and-answer session of Reynolds’ annual shareholders meeting as well as peaceful street protests following the meeting.

    The group was not able to protest in May because Reynolds did not conduct a shareholders meeting. At that time, British American Tobacco was in the process of buying Reynolds.

    Reynolds said it had no comment on FLOC’s boycott discussion.

    Craver’s story is at: http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/farmworker-labor-group-votes-to-boycott-vuse/article_83223678-26e5-5473-afe1-7353a2bed47c.html.

  • Don’t panic!

    Four scientists have co-authored a study debunking some of the most pervasive myths about the dangers electronic cigarettes pose to young people, according to a piece by Guy Bentley published at washingtonexaminer.com.

    Bentley says the study is a wide-ranging critique of former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s 2016 report on e-cigarettes and young people that had added fresh momentum to a moral panic over youth vaping.

    Fears of young people experimenting with e-cigarettes had since been used as a justification for higher taxes, tighter regulations, and de facto bans on vapor products, Bentley wrote.

    This was despite research showing that e-cigarettes posed just a fraction of the risks of traditional tobacco cigarettes and the growing body of evidence that they helped adults quit smoking.

    By labeling youth vaping a ‘major public health concern’, Murthy’s report had given an air of credibility to the more extreme parts of the anti-vaping crowd.

    But a study published on September 6 in the journal Harm Reduction had served as a much-needed corrective to the hysteria that had pervaded the public debate on e-cigarettes in the wake of Murthy’s report.

    First off, the study conceded Murthy was correct to observe there were several hundred percent increases in the number of youths who had tried e-cigarettes from 2011 to 2015. But the authors point out this observation obscured the more important measure in terms of public health, which was how frequently youths were using e-cigarettes.

    The data showed youth vaping was ‘either infrequent or experimental’. Only a tiny proportion of young people who reported using e-cigarettes were doing so on a regular basis.

    Bentley’s piece is at: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/teen-vaping-is-not-a-public-health-crisis-despite-the-moral-panic/article/2633559

  • For your eyes only

    For your eyes only

    The US Food and Drug Administration is encouraging the creation of tobacco product master files (TPMFs) that would be made available only to those with authorized access.

    ‘TPMFs are voluntary submissions to the FDA that contain trade secret and/or confidential commercial information about a tobacco product that the owner does not want to share with others,’ said a note put out by the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. ‘Once a TPMF is submitted, the TPMF owner can allow authorized parties the right to reference the owner’s TPMF in support of their own tobacco product submission to the FDA.

    ‘For example, a flavor supplier could submit a TPMF to the FDA that contains the full listing of ingredients and composition information of different flavors. The flavor supplier could then grant a customer the right to reference the TPMF to support the customer’s premarket application for an e-cigarette that uses the supplier’s flavors. When reviewing the premarket application, the FDA will also review the confidential TPMF ingredient and composition information, without sharing that information with the customer.

    ‘Submissions that may reference a TPMF include premarket tobacco applications, substantial equivalence reports, modified risk tobacco product applications, requests for exemption from substantial equivalence requirements, grandfathered submissions, investigational tobacco product submissions, and ingredient listings.

    ‘This program mutually benefits TPMF owners and authorized parties. TPMF owners can reference their own master file rather than submitting the information contained in the TPMF separately for multiple submissions. Authorized parties can reference scientific data and analysis that would otherwise be confidential or potentially difficult to develop themselves.

    ‘Ultimately, TPMFs result in potential cost savings for all parties involved.’

    The note went on to say that the FDA did not intend to conduct a scientific review of a TPMF at the time of its establishment, and that establishment of a TPMF did not equate to a conclusion regarding its contents. ‘The FDA typically reviews the TPMF when appropriately referenced in a submission to the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products,’ the note said.

    ‘In May 2016, the FDA published a Tobacco Product Master File … Guidance, which outlines recommendations for how to submit, and what information to include, in a TPMF.

  • Natural selection end-game

    Natural selection end-game

    Researchers report they have spotted signs that human DNA is still evolving, and such evolution could eventually reduce smoking, according to a HealthDay story citing a new study.

    “It’s a subtle signal, but we find genetic evidence that natural selection is happening in modern human populations,” said study co-author Joseph Pickrell, an evolutionary geneticist at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center.

    Pickrell and his colleagues explored the genomes of ‘60,000 people of European descent from California and 150,000 from Great Britain’. The researchers looked for signs of mutations that are linked to longer life spans.

    The researchers found that a genetic variation linked to Alzheimer’s appears to be fading in older women, possibly because women who have it tend to die earlier.

    They also found similar evidence that a genetic variation linked to heavy smoking in men is becoming less common.

    “It may be that men who don’t carry these harmful mutations can have more children, or that men and women who live longer can help with their grandchildren, improving their chance of survival,” said co-author Molly Przeworski in a Columbia news release. She is an evolutionary biologist at the university.

    The study was published on September 5 in the journal PLOS Biology.

    The HealthDay story is at: https://consumer.healthday.com/general-health-information-16/evolution-anthropology-972/evolution-not-over-for-humans-726038.html.

  • SM expands in US

    SM expands in US

    Swedish Match is to invest $40.9 million to expand its production facility at Owensboro, Kentucky, US, according to a 14WFIE story relayed by the TMA.

    As well as adding 34,000 square feet to its existing facility; it will add, too, a 16,000-square-foot production area for ZYN, a smokeless and spitless tobacco-derived nicotine pouch.

    The construction is expected to start this month and to be completed by July 2019.

    Established in 1973, the Owensboro facility employs 342 people, including a 26-member research and development team added during a 2015 expansion.

    The expanded facility is expected to require another 36 full-time employees.

  • E-cigarettes are “fun”

    E-cigarettes are “fun”

    Former smokers are nearly three times more likely to abstain from cigarette smoking if they puff on an electronic cigarette two out of every three days a month, according to a story by Dennis Thompson for HealthDay, citing a new study that analysed a US federal survey on smoking.

    The study was published on August 31 in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.

    “E-cigarettes are an effective way to get cigarette smokers to quit, but you really need to use those e-cigarettes,” said lead researcher Professor David Levy.

    “Using them a couple days a month isn’t going to be anywhere near as effective as if you use them most, if not all, days in a month.”

    The odds of a smoker successfully quitting increases by 10 percent with each additional day of e-cigarette use, said Levy, a professor with Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Washington, D.C.

    However, pulmonologist Dr. Louis De Palo was said to be concerned that e-cigarettes did too good a job replacing traditional tobacco cigarettes.

    “People don’t get addicted to the other forms of nicotine replacement because they aren’t fun,” said De Palo, who’s an associate professor of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

    “Gum doesn’t taste very good. The nose inhaler burns a little bit. The patches are irritating. And none of them give you the psychological satisfaction of holding something in your hand and smoking,” he explained.

    “E-cigarettes are highly addictive, easy to use, and fun,” De Palo continued. “This study doesn’t address the strategy for eventually weaning people off e-cigarettes.”

    For this study, Levy and his colleagues reviewed data from more than 24,000 participants in the 2014/2015 Tobacco Use Supplement-Current Population Survey, a regular survey on smoking administered by the US Census Bureau.

    The full text of Thompson’s piece is at: https://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/electronic-cigarettes-970/e-cigs-may-help-smokers-quit-but-hellip-726072.html.

  • PMI to webcast presentation

    PMI to webcast presentation

    Philip Morris International Inc. is due to host a live audio webcast at www.pmi.com/2017barclays of the company’s remarks and question-and-answer session by CFO Jacek Olczak during the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference starting about 13.30 Eastern Time on September 7.

    The webcast, which will be in listen-only mode, will cover the entire PMI session.

    The webcast may also be accessed on iOS or Android devices by downloading PMI’s free Investor Relations Mobile Application at www.pmi.com/irapp.

    An archived copy of the webcast will be available at www.pmi.com/2017barclays until 17.00 on October 6.

    Related materials will be available, also at www.pmi.com/2017barclays.

    The conference is being held in Boston, US.

  • Flavor ban harmful

    Flavor ban harmful

    If the US city of San Francisco ultimately implements its recently adopted ordinance to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, it will do more harm than good, according to an op-ed by Dr. Joel Nitzkin published on the R Street website.

    In fact, the ban would increase rates of tobacco-related addiction, illness and death across the city.

    ‘There are two major issues with this ordinance,’ Nitzkin said. ‘The first is the ease with which persons who want these products can simply get them in neighboring communities, or from a thriving black market sure to develop within the city.

    ‘The second, and more important, is the fact that this ban will virtually eliminate local on-site access to less addictive and remarkably low-risk nicotine vapor products.

    ‘While barring access to most e-cigarettes, the ordinance will do nothing to reduce access to non-menthol cigarettes, which remain the deadliest and most addictive tobacco products.’

    The full text of Nitzkin’s piece is at: http://www.rstreet.org/op-ed/flavored-tobacco-ordinance-sure-to-backfire/.

  • The die is cast

    The die is cast

    Tobacco growers in the US states of Kentucky and Tennessee are being encouraged to switch to producing indigo as a ‘viable economic alternative’ to tobacco, according to a Forbes story relayed by the TMA.

    In an interview, Sarah Bellos, founder of the bio-based dye start-up company, Stony Creek Colors, told Forbes that US tobacco growers were losing contracts due to the declines in smoking prevalence.

    Bellos said that her company contracted the growers at the beginning of the season with what looked like a tobacco contract.

    But Stony Creek Colors took more of the weather-related risk. “We pay them on a per-acre basis versus paying per ton,” she said. “A farmer doesn’t have a good way of projecting crop yields until after several years. We will move towards performance-based pay over time.”

    Bellos added that harvesting tobacco was very labor intensive and by switching to indigo, growers “could benefit from a sustainable crop that doesn’t require nitrogen and can attract beneficial insects”.

  • A positive role for nicotine

    A positive role for nicotine

    Lung experts at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center are testing whether nicotine can help people with a chronic inflammatory lung disease called sarcoidosis, according to a story on news-medical.net.

    Why nicotine? “Around 2000, we learned two things,” said Dr. Elliott Crouser, a pulmonologist specializing in sarcoidosis.

    “There was new evidence that nicotine is an anti-inflammatory, and from other studies we discovered smokers were less likely to get sarcoidosis.

    “So we’re testing whether nicotine can be a solution. We hope people will actually get a secondary benefit – not only will their lung disease get better, but they’ll feel more energized and have better quality of life.”

    Crouser described sarcoidosis as “tricky” because it mimicked other diseases. “It’s frequently misdiagnosed,” he said. “Sarcoidosis can look like lung nodules, pneumonia, scar tissue, even lung cancer. It can involve other vital organs, and it differs from one person to the next.”

    Left untreated, sarcoidosis can cause severe lung damage and even death. And unlike in the case of most lung diseases, the main symptom isn’t shortness of breath, but debilitating fatigue.

    Current treatments such as steroids often have side effects harsher than the symptoms of the disease itself. “We can’t use the medications for very long before these side effects occur,” said Crouser. “They can be severe, such as the development of osteoporosis, cataracts, diabetes or high blood pressure and complications related to those.

    “We need better, more tolerable options.”

    So Crouser is leading a clinical trial at the Wexner Medical Center to test nicotine patches as a potential treatment for sarcoidosis.

    The full story is at: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20170828/Lung-experts-test-nicotine-patches-as-potential-treatment-for-sarcoidosis.aspx.