Tag: United States

Smokeless – it’s not rocket science
It has been known for two decades that, by avoiding smoke, tobacco users – chewers, dippers, and snusers – eliminate about 98 percent of the health risks associated with smoking, according to two public health experts in the US.
The risks are so small, they say, that even large epidemiologic studies with hundreds of thousands of users cannot provide indisputable evidence that smokeless tobacco causes any disease.
And yet, the Food and Drug Administration – and, indeed, the EU – seems implacably opposed to allowing tobacco consumers to be informed about this lower risk.
The question is why?
In an interview published by the Huffington Post, the psychotherapist, author and TV commentator, Robi Ludwig, Psy.D, tries to get to the bottom of this and other questions by talking with Dr. Brad Rodu, who has studied the science behind tobacco harm-reduction strategies and has been appointed the first holder of the Endowed Chair in Tobacco Harm Reduction Research at the University of Louisville’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center, and Dr. Joel Nitzkin, public health physician, who is board certified in preventive medicine and has been involved in tobacco control activities since the late 1970s.
The interview is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/two-doctors-on-a-mission-to-set-the-record-straight_us_58f96d42e4b0de26cfeae28c.
April 21, 2017
Tobacco flavors targeted
Photo by Håkan Dahlström
Lawmakers in the US cities of San Francisco and Oakland are suggesting that these cities ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, blunt wraps, cigars, and cigarillos, according to a story by Malia Cohen for SFist.
‘For too long the tobacco industry has gotten a pass while they selectively target vulnerable populations with flavored tobacco products,’ Supervisor Cohen, who is proposing the legislation in San Francisco, was quoted as saying in a press note.
‘Flavored tobacco hooks new smokers and makes them lifelong users.
‘It can be more harmful and more difficult to quit than unflavored tobacco.’
Cohen went on to say that tobacco use in general remained the leading cause of preventable deaths in the US.
And she said that the proposed legislation would have a ‘tremendous impact on the disturbing disparities for tobacco-related illnesses’, and would reduce the number of new tobacco users that picked up the habit.
The Mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee, is said to be putting his weight behind Cohen’s proposal.
He has said that if the bill makes its way through the Board of Supervisors, he will sign it into law.
A similar push to legislate against flavored tobacco products has come from Oakland city’s council member Annie Campbell Washington.
“We first took on big soda and succeeded and now we are taking on big tobacco together,” Campbell Washington said, referring to a soda tax that was imposed in Oakland and San Francisco in November.
April 20, 2017
RAI to publish results
Reynolds American Inc. said yesterday that it would publish its first-quarter 2017 financial results before the market opens on May 3.
April 20, 2017
E-cigs preferred quit aid
Cigarette smokers in the US prefer electronic cigarettes to Food and Drug Administration-approved quit methods, according to a tobacco harm reduction expert citing a research brief authored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health, RTI International and the University of North Carolina.
Writing on the Heartland Institute website, Dr. Brad Rodu, who holds the Endowed Chair in Tobacco Harm Reduction Research at the University of Louisville’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center and who is a Senior Fellow of the Heartland Institute, said that, using a nationally representative online survey of 15,943 adult smokers who tried to quit during the past three months, the researchers found that 75 percent used one or more methods to quit, and 25 percent used only one method.
‘E-cigarettes were far more popular single quit aids for partial or complete substitution (2.2 percent), compared with nicotine patches/gum (0.8 percent) or other prescription medicines (0.4 percent),’ Rodu wrote. ‘They were also more popular when more than one aid was used.
‘Participants here were current smokers. A similar analysis performed on former smokers will show even more impressive effects from vaping.’
Rodu was disappointed by the survey authors’ response to the findings.
‘Despite the current study’s evidence of vaping’s popularity among smokers, the authors’ summation was understated: “Given that our data show that e-cigarettes are more commonly used for quit attempts than FDA-approved medications, further research is warranted on the safety and effectiveness of using e-cigarettes to quit smoking”.
‘The fact is that the CDC has documented with real-world data that e-cigarettes are preferred smoking cessation aids, negating the argument that evidence is merely “anecdotal”.
‘Our government should adopt the UK Royal College of Physicians’ position that “the hazard to health arising from long-term vapour inhalation from the e-cigarettes available today is unlikely to exceed 5 percent of the harm from smoking tobacco”.
‘In Britain e-cigs have been the leading quit-smoking aid since 2013.’
The Heartland Institute piece is at: http://blog.heartland.org/2017/04/cdc-e-cigarettes-more-popular-than-fda-approved-quitting-aids/.
It was first published at Tobacco Truth at http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com.
April 19, 2017
Altria to webcast results
The Altria Group is due to host a live audio webcast from 09.00 Eastern Time on May 2 to discuss its 2017 first-quarter business results.
The company will issue a press release containing its business results about 07:00 the same day.
During the webcast, Marty Barrington, Altria’s chairman, CEO and president, and Billy Gifford, CFO, will discuss the company’s results and answer questions from the investment community and news media.
The webcast, which will be in listen-only mode, can be accessed at altria.com or through the Altria Investor App.
Pre-event registration is necessary through www.altria.com/webcasts.
An archived copy of the webcast will be available on altria.com or through the Altria Investor App.
The free app is available for download at www.altria.com/irapp or through the Apple App Store or Google Play.
April 19, 2017
Proposed tobacco tax unfair
Senate President, Scott Sales of Montana, US, has said that proposed tobacco tax increases are punitive to the people who are least able to pay, and that the state should not balance its budget on the backs of these people.
His remarks were reported in the Great Falls Tribune and supported by the paper’s editorial board.
The Tribune said that the proposed measure, which would raise taxes on cigarettes from $1.70 a pack to $3.20 a pack and on a can of chewing tobacco from $0.85 to $3.20 a can on May 1, was passed in the Senate by a 27 to 22 vote.
It moved to the House Taxation Committee, which took action on Thursday that would make it extremely difficult to bring the bill to the House for debate and a vote.
If successful, the new tax was expected to generate about $70 million in funds over the next two years – funds that would go into the state’s general fund.
Supporters of the bill said the new money would be used to boost the wages of direct care workers serving the elderly and disabled who were covered by Medicaid.
‘We support better pay for those workers, but an increased “sin” tax on tobacco users is not the way to accomplish that,’ the editorial said. ‘For that reason, we hope the bill fails.’
The editorial is at: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/opinion/2017/04/07/proposed-tobacco-tax-increase-punitive-unfair/100144310/
April 11, 2017
CEO collects $27.6 million
Photo by 401(K) 2013
The Altria Group CEO Martin Barrington was paid $27.6 million in 2016, up 107 percent on his pay for 2015, $13.3 million, according to Reuters story citing a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
CFO William Gifford Jr was paid $8 million in 2016, up 63 percent on his pay for 2015, $4.9 million.
Last year, Altria’s cigarette shipments were down by 2.5 percent, but shipments of cigars and smokeless tobacco were increased by 5.9 percent and 4.9 percent respectively.
In presenting the results for 2016, Barrington said the company had had another “outstanding year”.
“We grew our earnings in line with our long-term objectives while returning a large amount of cash to shareholders, improving our balance sheet and strengthening our organizational capability, thus positioning Altria to continue to deliver on our long-term financial goals,” he said.
“In 2016, Altria’s total return to shareholders of 20.5 percent outpaced both the S&P 500 and the S&P Food, Beverage and Tobacco Index, marking the fourth consecutive year that total shareholder return exceeded 20 percent.
“During the year, we also rewarded our shareholders by paying out over $4.5 billion in dividends, raising our dividend by eight percent, and repurchasing over $1 billion of our shares under an expanded $3 billion share repurchase program.
“And with Altria’s support of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s landmark business combination with SABMiller, we enhanced the value of our beer investment and our position in the global brewing profit pool.”
April 10, 2017
FDA nominee uncommitted on flavors
President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday to commit to banning flavored cigars and electronic cigarettes, according to a story in The Hill.
Scott Gottlieb said he could see where flavored products might be inappropriate in one context and appropriate in another.
He indicated that he thought that FDA experts should be making those determinations.
In answer to a question from the Democratic Senator Patty Murray about the flavors gummy bears and cookies and cream, Gottlieb said he recognized there needed to be a line there somewhere, but that he didn’t know where that line was to be drawn.
“I think that line needs to get drawn by people who are experts in evaluating that science, and I want to support that,” he said.
Gottlieb said Murray was raising some imperative questions about when a reduced-harm product such as an electronic cigarette could be useful in transitioning people away from combustible cigarettes and when they might be a gateway to adolescent smoking.
“I think a properly constructed and overseen regulatory process should have the capacity under the authorities Congress gave the agency to make these determinations,” he said.
April 7, 2017
Japan okays acquisition
British American Tobacco said yesterday that it had obtained unconditional antitrust approval from the Japanese authorities in relation to its proposed acquisition of Reynolds American Inc.
‘Together with the previously announced expiry of the HSR Act [Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act ] waiting period, the conditions related to antitrust approvals required as part of the closing conditions to the proposed acquisition have now been satisfied, BAT said in a note posted on its website.
‘Both parties continue to expect the transaction to close during the third quarter of 2017, subject to satisfaction or waiver of the other closing conditions specified in the merger agreement.’
A similar statement was posted on RAI’s website.
April 6, 2017
Vaping risk suggestion ‘absurd’
A US public health expert has described as absurd a suggestion that smoking cannot be said to be any more hazardous than is vaping.
Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, reported on his blog that an expert at Penn Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania’s health care system, was telling the public that smoking cigarettes, such as Marlboros, Camels, and Newports, might be no more hazardous to their health than was vaping a tobacco-free e-liquid.
“We know that cigarettes are unsafe after 40 years of exposure,” the expert was quoted as saying. “We don’t have 40 years of exposure to e-cigarettes to know what the danger is. We don’t know the safety profile, so we can’t say that e-cigarettes are safer than traditional cigarettes.”
Siegel said that if the expert was saying that it couldn’t be said that electronic cigarettes were safer than were traditional cigarettes, then the expert was saying was that it couldn’t be said that smoking was any more hazardous than vaping.
‘This is an absurd statement, completely in conflict with scientific evidence, and not even the tobacco companies would make such a claim,’ Siegel wrote…
‘In other words, the statement of this expert is essentially a huge advertisement for tobacco cigarettes, the most deadly consumer product on the market in terms of its toll on the lives and health of Americans.’
Siegel’s blog, The Rest of the Story, is at: http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/penn-medicine-expert-smoking-may-be-no.html
April 5, 2017