On his Tobacco Analysis blog, ACSH advisor Dr. Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health excoriates the European Union s revised Tobacco Products Directive. The already restrictive Directive now recommends banning the marketing of all smokeless nicotine-containing products (NCP).
Harm Reduction
Recently, the Ministry of Health in New Zealand moved to ban Hydro, a popular brand of electronic cigarette. In response, Dr. Murray Laugesen, founder of Health New Zealand, called for the Ministry to review its policy on electronic cigarettes, as such a ban is against the public s particularly smokers best interests.
In his open letter, Dr. Laugesen draws attention to a number of key points. As he points out,
Persistent tobacco smokers face a lifetime 50 percent risk of dying early ¦ Nicotine products do not cause cancer or heart disease, unlike smoked tobacco products. If there is a tiny risk from nicotine, many smokers are prepared to take that risk, rather than run the deadly risks of smoking tobacco.
A hat tip to Lori Newman, whose article on electronic cigarettes is now online at LifeScript. In it, Newman discusses the benefits of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation device, aided by our own Dr. Gilbert Ross, as well as ACSH scientific advisor Dr. Michale Siegel, a tobacco researcher and professor of community healthsciences at Boston University s School of Public Health.
Newman explains how exactly an e-cigarette works, responds to detractors, and discussesthe logistics of the e-cig as a smoking cessation device.
As if there weren t already enough, a new study provides even further evidence of the extensive adverse health effects of smoking. According to a team of Italian researchers, people who continue to smoke after having a stroke have triple the risk of dying within a year.
In keeping with its annual tradition, the New York Department of Health is launching this year s new smoking cessation campaign, called Suffering Every Minute. As previous campaigns have done, this one will include TV, internet, and print ads warning people of the dangers of cigarettes by emphasizing the suffering that smoking causes.
And, in collaboration with New York State Smokers Quitline, the Health Department is encouraging smokers to call or sign up online to receive free nicotine replacement therapy products, which will be given away through September 20.
More evidence that, if you re going to smoke (which we don t recommend), you shouldn t do it around your kids: A study published in The Journal of Pediatrics has found that children exposed to second-hand smoke at home are more likely to have serious complications when they come down with the flu.
Over a decade ago, major cigarette manufacturers were forced to take responsibility for their role in tobacco-related health care costs, in the form of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. The court case set right numerous cigarette marketing practices that were misleading and harmful. Yet the ruling was a mixed bag for public health: Some marketing restrictions and increased taxes contributed to a decline in smoking rates, but Big Tobacco was ultimately granted immunity from individual lawsuits. The multi-billion dollar settlement also put the plaintiff s attorneys in the spotlight, many of whom have effectively dined out on that winning case by filing suits against other businesses. Now they re taking on the food industry.
We still have a long way to go when it comes to curtailing tobacco use worldwide, new research just published in The Lancet confirms. According to the latest estimates, nearly half of adult men in developing countries use tobacco products, while women increasingly take up smoking at younger ages, and the quit rate in most countries is far too low.
In an op-ed in the current issue of JAMA, Dr. Howard K. Koh, assistant secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and HHS Secretary Kathleen G. Sebelius boast about the efficacy of various interventions in curbing the tobacco epidemic. Their piece specifically highlights the effectiveness of media campaigns, higher prices, and smoke-free policies in helping smokers quit. The news would be quite welcome if only it were true.
Though it s widely known that smoking cigarettes accelerates the thickening of fatty deposits that clog arteries, a new study has found that the same might also be true of eggs at least for those aged 40 and older who eat them on a regular basis. These dubious results were not only published in the journal Atherosclerosis but, sadly, they were also widely reported by the news media.
n a recent Op-Ed for Reuters, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg boasted about the success of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The news would be quite welcome if only it were true.
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the new law's various measures is nil. Its ban on candy cigarettes and requirement that cigarette makers divulge their ingredients will save exactly zero smokers. And the FDA's recent attempt to impose large graphic health warning labels on cigarette packages and ads is another empty gesture: Most studies show that such graphic labels have no impact. Dr. Hamburg's praise for the enforcement actions in the law would be appropriate, except that those rules were enacted first by the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1999.
The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act can take credit for banning candy-flavored cigarettes and requiring tobacco manufacturers to list their ingredients. And according to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, the law has been a success. But as ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross points out in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, such legislation will save exactly zero smokers.