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** 10 July 2020
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** UK
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** Cigarette giant being investigated for flouting Britain’s ban on menthols (#1)
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** Study of 17 million confirms factors that make COVID-19 more likely to kill (#2)
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** Scotland: Number of women smoking in Aberdeen drops by almost half in just seven years (#3)
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** International
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** Study: Lung cancer in non-smokers likely to respond differently to treatment (#4)
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** Parliamentary Activity
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** Parliamentary questions (#5)
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** Links of the week
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** Adult smoking habits in the UK (#6)
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** Tobacco tax gaps (#7)
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** UK
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** Public Health England is probing the UK’s biggest-selling tobacco firm, Japan Tobacco International, over new cigarettes that users say taste just like menthols. Menthol cigarettes were banned from the UK on 20 May as part of efforts to prevent young people from starting smoking with menthols, which many smokers mistakenly believed were less harmful.

The Mirror reveals seven of the most popular brands are being tested, including Sterling New Superkings Green, Benson & Hedges New Superkings Green and Mayfair New Green. Lab analysts are looking at new cigarette products boasting “fresh” flavour, to check if they are breaking the law, which states that products must not have any added “characterising flavour”.

Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said: “Smokers believe they’re still smoking menthol and that’s what counts. In the words of the proverb, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck.”

Source: Mirror.co.uk, 9 July 2020

See also: ASH press release - ASH warns that the ban on sale of menthol cigarettes is long overdue as 280 children a day take up smoking in England ([link removed])

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** A new study including health records of over 17 million adults has analysed the risk factors associated with COVID-19 death. Among the electronic health records of 17,278,392 adults, there were 10,926 COVID-19 related deaths, this builds on the researchers’ earlier work which considered factors associated with 5,707 deaths.

In line with previous studies, men had a greater (1.59-fold-higher) risk of COVID-19-related death than women, and age was also found to be a risk factor; people aged 80 or above had a 20-fold-increased risk compared to people aged 50–59.
Black and South Asian people, and those of mixed background, were 1.62–1.88 times more likely to die with COVID-19 than white people, after considering their prior medical conditions. The most deprived people in the cohort were 1.8 times more likely than the least deprived to die with COVID-19; clinical factors made only a small contribution to this risk, suggesting that social factors have a role.

Pre-existing medical conditions—including obesity (especially a BMI of over 40), diabetes, severe asthma, and respiratory, chronic heart, liver, neurological, and autoimmune diseases—were all found to be associated with an increased risk of COVID-19-related death. The authors note that their reported effects should not necessarily be interpreted as causal. Smoking and hypertension both had a slight negative association with risk. Yet, the authors suggest that this could be a result of interactions with other clinical factors, and they note that further studies are needed to understand these relationships better.

The authors caution that as clinically suspected, but unconfirmed cases of COVID-19 were included; some patients might have been incorrectly identified as having COVID-19 and, conversely, some deaths—particularly at earlier stages—might have been misclassified as non-COVID-19. They also explain that the sample may not be fully representative as some patient records were missing information on, for example, ethnicity.

Source: Medical Xpress, 9 July 2020

See also: OpenSAFELY - Factors associated with COVID-19 death in 17 million patients ([link removed])

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** The number of women who smoke in Aberdeen has plummeted by almost 50% in just seven years, according to figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The data released by the authority revealed that only 11% of female Aberdonians were smokers in 2019, compared to 21.4% in 2012. In the city overall, there were around third fewer smokers in 2019 compared to 2012.

A spokesperson for Public Health Scotland said: “Quitting smoking remains one of the best things you can do to protect your health and the health of those around you and so we welcome the fall in smoking prevalence shown in today’s ONS figures. This reflects the collaborative approach taken across the public sector and in particular, the hard work of local smoking cessation services. Public Health Scotland is working with partners across the public health landscape to reduce the harm from tobacco use. Our programmes of work on tobacco control and prevention are part of our wider ambition to improve and protect the health and wellbeing of all of Scotland’s people.”

Source: Evening Express, 09 July 2020

See also: Smoking habits in the UK and its constituent countries ([link removed])

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** International
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** Lung cancer in non-smokers is a diverse and distinct disease from that in smokers and is likely to respond differently to targeted treatments, a major new study shows.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, worked with colleagues at the Academia Sinica and the National Taiwan University to analyse tumour samples from 103 lung cancer patients from Taiwan – the majority of whom were non-smokers. They found a range of genetic changes which varied depending on a patient’s age or sex. Many non-smokers with lung cancer had signs of DNA damage from environmental carcinogens.

The researchers conducted a detailed analysis of genetic changes, gene activation, protein activity and cellular ‘switches’ in lung cancer to develop the most comprehensive overview of the biology of disease in non-smokers to date. Looking at the genetics and the related proteins produced by cancer cells in the tumour samples, scientists found that some early-stage lung tumours in non-smokers were biologically like more advanced disease in smokers. The team also picked out groups of patients – particularly older women – whose cancers had mutation patterns linked to cancer-causing substances in their environment such as pollutants.

While the new study looked at patients treated in Taiwan, the researchers believe that many of their findings could apply to UK patients. Next, they will be validating their findings in larger studies and beyond Asia.

Professor Paul Workman, Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: “This new study offers a deep dive into the biology of lung cancer in people who have never smoked. It reveals new ways of telling apart patients with different tumour characteristics that could be exploited with tailored treatment strategies. Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer in the UK, and much of what we know about the disease comes from studies in smokers. I’m hopeful that the new insights gleaned in this new study will really step up precision medicine in lung cancer for non-smokers, so they can be offered smarter, kinder treatment options.”

Source: SCIENMAG, 9 July 2020

See also: Cell Today Journal - Proteogenomics of Non-smoking Lung Cancer in East Asia Delineates Molecular Signatures of Pathogenesis and Progressio ([link removed](20)30743-1 ) n ([link removed](20)30743-1 )
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** Parliamentary Activity
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**
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** PQ1& PQ2: Tobacco

Asked by Adam Afriyie, Windsor

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his planned review of tobacco legislation after the transition period will be based on the harm reduction principle of regulating products according to individual risk to health.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timeframe is for his Department to undertake a review of tobacco legislation after the transition period; and what the terms of reference for that review will cover.

Answered by Jo Churchill MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

The Government has a legal commitment to undertake a Post Implementation Review (PIR) of the Tobacco and Related Product Regulations 2016 and The Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 by May 2021. A response to the PIRs on tobacco legislation from 2010-2016 will be published later this year.

The Government is committed to achieving a smokefree England by 2030. Plans to achieve this will be set out at a later date. We will continue to monitor the evidence base on the latest developments in the reduced risk products market, including e-cigarettes, to assess their risks and evidence to help smokers quit smoking.

Source: Hansard, 9 July 2020

Links:
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** PQ1:[link removed]

PQ2:[link removed]
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** Links of the week
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** On Tuesday, 7 July 2020, the Office of National Statistics published the UK adult smoking prevalence figures for 2019. Key findings from the data include:
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** In the UK, the proportion of current smokers has fallen from 14.7% in 2018 to 14.1% in 2019.
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** In 2019, 13.9% of adults in England smoked, down from 14.4% in 2018.
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** 8 out of 9 regions in England saw adult smoking prevalence decline, with Yorkshire & the Humber, the East Midlands and London seeing declines of 1%.
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** People aged 25 to 34 years continued to have the highest smoking prevalence, with 18.9% of people in this age group smoking in England.
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** The data is available to be viewed online.
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View Data ([link removed] )


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** HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) published a report on Thursday 9 July 2020, which provides an estimate of the tax gap across all taxes and duties for 2018/19, including tobacco.

ASH analysis of the data shows that the introduction of plain standardised packaging has not, as the tobacco industry said it would, led to an increase in smuggling. If anything, the reverse is true as all cigarettes and hand-rolled tobacco (HRT) had to be sold in standardised packs by 20 May 2017 and tax losses have declined by 25% since then:
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** The volume of illicit cigarettes has remained at 2.5 billion – the same as the previous year and half that of the two years before that (2015-6 and 16-17).
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** The volume of HRT is 3.3 million kgs – HRT declined significantly over the last decade from around 5.5 million kg in 2008-9 but has flatlined for the last couple of years.
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** The total tax gap for 2018-19 was £1.9 billion compared to £1.8 billion in 2017-18 – but lower than in 2015-16 and 2016-17 when it was £2.4 billion, a decline of a quarter.
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** For the first time since records were published, the lost tax on HRT (£1 billion) is greater than on manufactured cigarettes (£900 million).
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** The lost tax on illicit tobacco has not gone down as much as the volume of cigarettes which is not surprising as tax has gone up year on year above inflation, at 2% for cigarettes with a further uplift for hand-rolled tobacco on an ad hoc basis.
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** The market share of illicit tobacco has remained 9% and 34% for HRT, the same as in 2017-18.
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** The HMRC report is available to be viewed online.
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**
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View Report ([link removed] )
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For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[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.

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