|
|
|
|
MP criticises tobacco firm for leaking data on rival’s products, after EU's ban on menthol cigarettes
Bob Blackman MP, the Conservative chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, said efforts by British American Tobacco (BAT) to pass information on another company’s range of products designed to replace illegal menthol cigarettes were “completely inappropriate”. Mr Blackman received a letter from BAT that claimed it had data showing that a new range of cigarettes from rival Japan Tobacco International (JTI) still contained menthol, which was banned from 20th May this year.
Mr Blackman said: “BAT’s letter offered to share evidence in confidence that one of their competitors was still selling menthol-flavoured cigarettes after the ban came into effect. As I responded their offer is completely inappropriate, their public duty is to share the evidence with the appropriate authorities without delay.” Mr Blackman added he had forwarded a copy of the letter to Public Health Minister Jo Churchill, who responded that the issue was “being followed up” by her officials to investigate.
The row follows the ban of all menthol cigarettes last month, and the introduction of JTI’s “New Dual” range across its Benson & Hedges, Mayfair and Silk Cut products. The ban was brought in as part of efforts to prevent young people from smoking. While JTI admitted the new cigarettes do contain menthol, it maintained they did not break the new laws.
However, Alison Cox, director of cancer prevention at Cancer Research UK, believes JTI’s new products are worthy of further scrutiny: “The menthol tobacco ban was put in place to reduce the appeal of deadly tobacco products, and prevent young people from starting to smoke. [...] There should be a thorough and transparent investigation of these claims, to ensure that these new tobacco products being sold in the UK adhere fully to the regulations. Tobacco remains the leading cause of cancer in the UK, and measures like the menthol ban must be upheld in their entirety to protect public health.”
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, said: “ASH has written to the Government to ask for an investigation into these new ‘green’ cigarettes which Japan Tobacco International say contain a special tobacco blend which tastes like menthol. If this required the addition of any ingredient other than tobacco, then these products are illegal. If they are made of a magical new tobacco blend that tastes like menthol, then JTI may be found to have obeyed the letter of the law but in no way can the company be said to be following the spirit.”
Source: The i, 04 June 2020
|
|
Opinion: Addressing systematic racism in light of COVID-19
Gary Younge, professor of sociology at the University of Manchester and former Guardian columnist, writes in the New Statesman on the disproportionately in COVID-19 deaths among BAME communities, and the importance of acknowledging and addressing systematic racism in response:
"[...] Witnessing coronavirus disproportionately devastate minority communities, in Britain and elsewhere, feels a lot like being in New Orleans shortly after Katrina. The pandemic is exposing broader inequalities, systemic injustice and official denial. At the outset the disparities were impressionistic and anecdotal. The roll call of the deceased suggested something more than a pattern. The first ten doctors to die from Covid-19 in the UK were black or Asian.
"[...] According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), adjusting for age, black people are more than four times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are more than three times as likely, and Indians more than twice as likely. BAME people account for 13.4 per cent of the population and 34 per cent of the patients admitted to intensive care units.
"[...] Two urgent questions emerge from these grim statistics. The first is: why should this be? At first glance, the answer appears straightforward. Put bluntly, minority communities are more likely to be poor, and poor people are, in a range of ways, more likely to be vulnerable. [...] Material deprivation may not be the whole story. The ONS concludes that even when adjusting for deprivation, age and other factors, black people, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are almost twice as likely to die as white people. There is speculation that this disparity may be explained genetically.
"[...] One need not dismiss these claims summarily to see there are sufficient grounds to question their logic. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are dying at a similarly disproportionate rate to black people but share little in the way of an ethnically related genetic relationship. Meanwhile, Indians, who until relatively recently were part of the same country as Bangladesh and Pakistan, have suffered far lower death rates. The one thing that black people, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis do have in common is that they are the poorest ethnic groups in the country, concentrated in the kind of jobs where you might contract the virus.
"[...] Though it adjusted for other factors, the ONS did not weight its findings to take into account the sectors where minorities are over-represented. […] Then there are a range of experiences that cannot be adjusted for in raw data, but certainly have an effect on behaviour and outcomes. […] surveys show black and Asian doctors are often treated as “outsiders” by their bosses and peers. They are significantly more likely than their white colleagues to be referred to the General Medical Council by their NHS employers for an investigation that could damage or end their careers. They are twice as likely not to raise concerns because of fears of recrimination, and complain of often feeling bullied and harassed.”
"[...] The second question is what can we do about it? In the short term, the answer is fairly straightforward. Just as minorities are disproportionately affected by the disease, they are disproportionately assisted by any efforts to combat it. The more PPE there is for health workers and care workers, the more that people avoid public transport, and the more that testing and tracing is available, the more that racial and ethnic disparities will be reduced.
""[...] It follows that in the medium term there should be a full, independent public inquiry into the racial disparity in the number of deaths. The government’s own review simply established what we already knew [...] The review adjusted the death rate for deprivation, among other things, but made no plans to do anything about it and offered no analysis of why this deprivation might be. [...] A proper inquiry would not only seek to establish accountability, where that is appropriate, but also examine the pressures, decisions, contexts and environments that got us to such a calamitous state of affairs. Such an inquiry could do for systemic racism what the Macpherson report of 1999 did for institutional racism – map out the complex and at times invisible relationship between power and discrimination that often traps well-meaning people in oppressive structures and black people in desperate circumstances. A group of BAME public figures have already called on the government to produce a “Covid-19 race equality strategy”.
" [...] It does not follow that because the pandemic has illustrated a range of inequalities and inequities the state will address them. Indeed, if anything the government will desperately try to exploit them to reshape the world in its own ideological image. It wouldn’t be the first time we demanded an overhaul of “the entire infrastructure of justice” and ended up with more injustice."
Source: New Statesman, 03 June 2020
|
|
John Harries writes in the Guardian on local government's role in testing and tracing and the view from local government leaders on the challenges that remain ahead:
"Given that new local outbreaks of the coronavirus would inevitably demand the attention of people on the ground, there had been rising frustration about the apparent lack of a role for councils in the government’s approach. Now, though, there was to be a “central” role for local authorities in “supporting the new test-and-trace service across England”, and an extra £300m from Whitehall to fund their new responsibilities.
" [...] But many of the local politicians and officials who will apparently play a key role in making everything work say hugely important questions remain unanswered. Nick Forbes, the Labour leader of Newcastle city council, says: “We don’t know what this system looks like, we don’t know how much it’s going to cost, we don’t know what money we’re getting. The government is way behind the curve here. We’ve only started to scratch the surface of what it all means.”
"[...] The new testing and tracing regime is branded with the logo of the NHS. It involves the government agency Public Health England, and official material on testing and tracing and local outbreaks identifies seven organisations and agencies that will also be involved, ranging from health protection boards and local strategic coordinating groups to outbreak engagement boards and local resilience forums. From the perspective of many people working at the grassroots, this is part of the problem. “Everything feels so fragmented,” one local government insider told me this week. “It feels like we’re trying to stick it all back together again.”
" [...] Linked to these complicated arrangements are proposals for what the government calls “local outbreak control plans”, so far focused on care homes, schools and places such as sheltered housing developments, and what official documents term “dormitories for migrant workers”. This is one of the areas where local authorities will seemingly be crucial, along with “supporting vulnerable people to get help to self-isolate”. The Department of Health and Social Care is initially working “intensively” with 11 “beacon” areas of England – including Leeds, Newcastle and Leicestershire – and has told local politicians and officials across England that they “need to develop local outbreak plans in June”.
" [...] Nick Rushton [Conservative Leader of of Leicestershire County Council] says that when he has talked with ministers, a term he has heard is “local political accountability”. “If we’ve got local accountability, I want local responsibility,” he says. “So, for example, if I had an outbreak in a factory where there’s a lot of people, I don’t want to say: ‘Yes, we’ve got an outbreak and we need to shut the factory and isolate all those people,’ and then have to phone up the secretary of state and ask them if I can do it. If they want me to do it, I will accept that responsibility if they give me those powers locally.” In response to this point, the Department of Health said it “will shortly be issuing guidance on how local and national government can work to ensure local outbreaks can be contained”. Rushton says [Nadine] Dorries “seems very keen to help us, on a Zoom call. But we need to see the colour of her money. Because we don’t know how much we’re going to get to do this.”
"Though the government has provided an extra £3.2bn in emergency Covid-19 funding for councils, and the Department of Health insists they have the resources they need to “tackle the immediate pressures they have told us they are facing”, Rushton’s authority has so far spent twice as much on the effects of Covid-19 as it has been given by ministers.
"[...] A source within the new national testing and tracing system says the involvement of councils came “too late, without a doubt”, but that over the last few weeks the government’s turn towards local authorities has made a “palpable difference”. [...] “It’s frustrating that we’ve only recently been seen as a resource to help the country get through this crisis,” says Forbes. “And even now, the chains of centralisation are still being rattled. The government doesn’t seem to want to fully let go.” [...] Forbes says: “The virus is still real. We’re not on top of it. We don’t yet have the systems in place to know where it is. Nor do we have the mechanisms to deal with an outbreak, yet. But we’ll move heaven and earth to try and do as much as we can.”
Source: The Guardian, 04 June 2020
|
|
International experts in tobacco control say WHO policy on vaping could cost lives
Following World No Tobacco Day 2020, an international group of independent experts with no conflicting links to the tobacco or vaping industry has criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for its approach to new technology, such as vaping products. Experts say they are exasperated by the WHO’s hostility towards new technology and fear the agency will miss the opportunity to avoid millions of premature deaths caused by smoking.
Professor David Abrams of the School of Global Public Health, New York University, said: “We know beyond reasonable doubt that vaping and other smoke-free nicotine products are very much less risky than smoking, and that those who switch completely see rapid improvements in their health. Yet the WHO continues to promote the outright prohibition or extreme regulation of these products. How can it make sense to ban the much safer product when cigarettes are available everywhere?”
Calling for WHO to refocus its efforts on the major objectives of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory disease, Professor John Britton, CBE, professor of epidemiology at the University of Nottingham and director, UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, said: “On World No Tobacco Day, the WHO should be driven by one overriding question: How do we get smoking down for the greatest number at the greatest rate? We know WHO embraces harm reduction in other areas of public health, including for illicit drugs and sexual health. If WHO wants to even come close to meeting its targets to reduce disease, it needs a strategy for smokers who can’t or won’t quit nicotine, and the rise of smoke-free products since 2010 makes that a practical option. WHO’s ‘quit or die’ approach to smokers and opposition to harm reduction makes no sense.”
Source: Vaping Post, 03 June 2020
|
|
Smoking in top-grossing US movies: 2019
The latest iteration of a series of reports analysing smoking in top-grossing US movies has been published by the Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California.
Key findings from the report include that:
-
In 2019, 51% of top-grossing US movies depicted tobacco, including 23% of G/PG movies, 43% of PG-13 movies and 76% of R-rated movies — all above their historic lows in 2016.
-
The amount of smoking in top-grossing movies rose to 3,618 incidents in 2019, the most in more than a decade.
-
In-theater tobacco impressions more than doubled over the past five years, from 9.3 billion in 2015 to 23.7 billion in 2019.
|
|
1. #QuitforCovid communications webinar led by South West region
On Thursday 11th June 2020, 10:00 - 11:00, ASH will be supporting a webinar on #QuitforCovid communications. The webinar will be led by the South West region but is open to colleagues from across England to join.
Register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2310962742695075342
The webinar agenda will cover:
-
The start of the story - how the campaign came about
-
Update on Smoking and COVID-19 & progress with #QuitforCovid campaign
-
PHE view on smoking and COVID-19
-
3 case studies from across the South West on utilising #QuitforCovid communications
2. Opportunities for driving down smoking prevalence among people with mental health problems
On Friday 26th June, 11:00 – 12:00 ASH will be running a webinar on smoking and mental health with presentations from leading academic experts.
Register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7235308086621874957
The webinar agenda will include:
-
Lockdown behaviour changes among smokers with mental health problems
-
Supporting particularly vulnerable smokers
-
Liaison between community and inpatient services
-
Embedding smoking cessation in IAPT
|
|
Have you been forwarded this email? Subscribe to ASH Daily News here.
For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] or visit www.ash.org.uk
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
