View this email in your browser ([link removed])
** 20 April 2023
------------------------------------------------------------
** UK
------------------------------------------------------------
** Rapid uptake in England of underage vaping prompts health warnings (#1)
------------------------------------------------------------
** Opinion: Vapes aren’t enough to stop people smoking (#2)
------------------------------------------------------------
** Tory health minister's wife works for private firm handed NHS contracts (#3)
------------------------------------------------------------
** Michael Gove has taxpayer-funded smoking hut on roof of his office (#4)
------------------------------------------------------------
** Thorax podcast on smoking and vaping with Professor Nick Hopkinson (#5)
------------------------------------------------------------
** UK
------------------------------------------------------------
** Rapid uptake in England of underage vaping prompts health warnings
The number of teenagers regularly vaping has jumped to one in seven, according to a new survey of schools in northern England, fuelling further calls from government advisers and medics for popular flavoured e-cigarettes to be banned.
Fourteen per cent of children aged between 14 and 17-years-old said they used vapes, more than once a week at the end of March, up from just six per cent in spring 2020, according to Trading Standards Northwest.
The findings will add to pressure on ministers to clamp down on the sale of these products to teens, following the launch of a government consultation into underage use of e-cigarettes in response to a surge in their popularity.
Javed Khan, a former executive who led a landmark government review into smoking last year, said the “worryingly high” levels of underage use “tipped the balance conclusively” in favour of a ban on flavoured, single-use vapes.
As part of the consultation’s call for evidence, which concludes in early June, the government is reviewing the effect of flavours, bright-coloured packaging and social media marketing on vape usage among young people.
The latest review could usher in the first tightening of regulation around e-cigarettes in England, where the government has historically championed vapes as a smoking cessation aid unlike health authorities in the US.
On top of the consultation, the government also announced it would hand out vaping starter kits to one in five adult smokers last week as part of its “smoke-free” drive.
Research suggests that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking, but nicotine usage in young people has been associated with mood and attention disorders.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of health charity Action on Smoking and Health, agreed that an outright ban on flavours would be counterproductive. Instead, ASH wants the government to put an excise tax of £4 on disposable vapes to make them less affordable for younger users.
Source: The Financial Times, 20 April 2023
See also: ASH – Resources on youth vaping ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Here ([link removed])
** Opinion: Vapes aren’t enough to stop people smoking
Writing for the New Statesman, Anthony Laverty, a senior lecturer in public health policy at Imperial College London, states that the government should be properly funding smoking cessation services and putting in place a levy on the tobacco industry rather than just focusing on e-cigarettes.
Laverty writes that the recent announcement made by health minister Neil O’Brien, which will provide financial incentives for pregnant women to quit smoking as well as giving out vape starter kits to one million smokers to encourage them to quit, has some merits but is “limited in ambition and funding” and misses some recommendations from the independent review carried out by Javed Khan last year.
One of these recommendations was to introduce a ‘polluter pays levy’ which would cap the profits made by the tobacco industry, and use the estimated £700 million raised from this to fund a tobacco control plan. Laverty adds that another recommendation made by Khan, raising the age of sale for tobacco, would make it more difficult for young people to take up smoking and would thus have a profound effect on smoking prevalence.
Laverty concludes by saying that “while incentivising a switch to vaping may be striking, the more long-lasting and substantial measures laid out in the Khan review have not been taken up.”
Source: The New Statesman, 19 April 2023
See also: The Khan review – making smoking obsolete ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Here ([link removed])
** Tory health minister's wife works for private firm handed NHS contracts
Neil O’Brien’s spouse is GP engagement lead for Circle Health Group, which operates taxpayer-funded services.
Circle Health was the first private firm to take over an NHS hospital.
It has 54 private hospitals across the UK and advertises that NHS patients can request to have their operations at its sites.
Mr O’Brien is the Minister for Primary Care in the Department of Health and Social Care. He was appointed to the role last September after previously being a Levelling Up minister.
His wife’s role with the private healthcare firm was revealed on the list of ministers' interests published yesterday.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Jemma O’Brien has worked for Circle Health in various roles since 2015.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay met with the firm in the same month to discuss “elective recovery”.
The Department of Health and Social Care declined to comment.
Source: The Mirror, 19 April 2023
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Here ([link removed])
** Michael Gove has taxpayer-funded smoking hut on roof of his office
Michael Gove has been taking his smoking breaks in a special hut built for him on the roof of his departmental office, after he was stalked by a terrorist and heckled in the street.
The taxpayer-funded smoking den was built specifically for Gove shortly after he was appointed levelling up secretary in October 2021 and he was heckled by anti-lockdown protesters.
Insiders insist police advised the cabinet minister to find somewhere private to take his smoking breaks within the levelling up department office because a secure area within the building did not exist. The hut was not constructed at Gove’s request.
Gove, 55, signalled his support for banning young people from smoking last year. He told Times Radio that he was “open-minded” about stopping everyone below a certain age from ever buying cigarettes.
“We do need to take steps to improve public health,” Gove said. “I do think that enlightened public health measures which are backed by strong scientific evidence, which follow the lead of the doctors, the clinicians – we should look seriously at them.”
Source: The Guardian, 19 April 2023
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Here ([link removed])
** Thorax podcast on smoking and vaping with Professor Nick Hopkinson
Dr. Kate Diomede, social media editor at Thorax, is joined by Prof. Nick Hopkinson, Professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College and chair of Action on Smoking and Health, to delve into the history of smoking policy in the UK, as well as detailing the lay of the land in current smoking-cessation practices, especially pertaining to vaping. Listen here ([link removed]) .
------------------------------------------------------------
Listen here ([link removed])
Have you been forwarded this email? Subscribe to ASH Daily News here. ([link removed])
For more information email
[email protected] (mailto:
[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk
@ASHorguk ([link removed])
ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.
============================================================
Our mailing address is:
Action on Smoking and Health
Unit 2.9, The Foundry
17 Oval Way
London
SE11 5RR
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
