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More than 2,000 boxes of e-cigarettes with more than double the legal limit of nicotine have been seized by Newcastle Council from a former takeaway shop in the West End of the city. In total, 24,000 e-cigarettes were seized, the majority of which were ‘Elf’ and ‘Geek Bar Pros’ which contain 50mg/ml of nicotine, well over the legal limit of 20mg/ml. Trading Standards has now launched a criminal investigation and charges could be brought against the owner of the haul.
Source: Chronicle, 22 November 2021
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New screenings for lung cancer which have been described as a potential game-changer for treatment are set to be rolled out across the South West. Starting from next year, people in the region will be invited for checks under the NHS England Targeted Lung Health Checks (TLHC) programme, a new initiative which aims to detect around 3,400 cancers early. TLHC is the first large-scale lung cancer screening programme in the UK.
So far 19 pilot lung checks have been rolled out across the country, with 200,000 scans expected by 2024. The screenings work as an artificial intelligence solution automatically detects, measures, classifies, and tracks the growth of pulmonary nodules on chest CT scans, tasks which are time-consuming for clinicians when performed manually. In the South West schemes have been approved in Somerset, Wiltshire, Avon and Gloucestershire, Devon and Cornwall. The scheme works by GPs inviting people who have ever smoked for a lung health check. Statistically, around half of them will be deemed at higher risk of lung cancer and so be invited for a CT scan, where the imaging will be examined by radiologists with the help of the artificial intelligence programme.
Dr Graham Robinson, a radiology consultant at Royal United Hospital in Bath and president of the British Society of Thoracic Imaging, says that the programme would be a "game-changer" if approved as a long-term national initiative. He said: "It would be one of the biggest changes in lung cancer management and diagnosis ever really. If you pick up lung cancer early there is definitely the ability to treat and cure these cancers so, this is a game changer for lung cancer".
Source: Planet Radio, 22 November 2021
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Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and Lincolnshire’s integrated care boards (ICBs) have announced their chief executives, leaving eight systems yet to reveal whether they have appointed a leader.
Hampshire and the Isle of Wight has appointed its current leader Maggie McIsaac as chief executive designate. McIsaac was previously the leader of the six clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) across Hampshire, Southampton, Isle of Wight, and Portsmouth and in April this year successfully merged them into one CCG. Lincolnshire has appointed John Turner as its CEO designate, who is currently the chief executive of Lincolnshire CCG.
That eight systems left to confirm whether they have appointed a chief executive are Frimley; Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West; Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; Hertfordshire and West Essex; Humber, Coast and Vale; South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw; Suffolk and North East Essex; and Surrey Heartlands. So far 28 of the 42 ICB chief executives have been named, while six have confirmed they were unable to recruit during the first round of recruitment, including five systems in the Midlands: Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, Black Country and West Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, and Birmingham and Solihull.
Source: HSJ, 22 November 2021
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Researchers at Maastricht University are calling on the Dutch Government to substantially increase tobacco taxes to successfully nudge smokers to quit, following a study which found that half of Dutch smokers surveyed would only quit smoking if cigarettes cost €60 (£50.55) a pack whilst 10% would quit if cigarettes cost at least €12 (£10.11) per pack.
The researchers asked nearly 1,500 daily smokers how many manufactured or hand-rolled cigarettes they would buy and smoke at eight different prices. One third of respondents said that they would still purchase cigarettes at even the highest price. Cigarettes in the Netherlands currently cost around €8.20 (£6.91) per pack with a scheduled rise to €10 by 2023. Currently 22% of the Dutch population smoke, with the Government aiming to bring levels down to 5% by 2040.
Source: Dutch News, 23 November 2021
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Kenneth E. Warner, professor emeritus and dean emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, argues that including a tax on e-cigarettes but not raising taxes on cigarettes in the US Congress’ Build Back Better plans will have damaging effects on public health. Warner acknowledges that the tax on e-cigarettes may dissuade youth usage by making them less affordable and accessible. However, he says that by the same virtue it will increase cigarette smoking among adults and possibly teenagers.
Warner points out that evidence shows e-cigarettes are substantially less harmful than combustible tobacco cigarettes. Studies also show that e-cigarettes are smokers’ most frequently used quitting aid with the highest success rates. A study on Minnesota’s tax hike on e-cigarettes found that cigarette consumption rose by a statistically significant amount whilst smoking cessation dropped. The study found that if e-cigarette taxes were raised nationally to match cigarette taxes, around 2.75 million fewer Americans would quit smoking combustible cigarettes over 10 years.
Warner notes that the federal tax of $1.01 (£0.75) per pack of cigarettes has not risen since 2009, making the current US price of around $7 (£5.23) for a pack of cigarettes particularly low. The proposed tax affecting e-cigarettes would only raise an estimated $8.6bn (£6.43bn) over the next 10 years, a figure Warner says is hardly worth the public health cost. He concludes that a major tax rise on cigarettes alongside a modest e-cigarette tax would be best, discouraging young people from taking up smoking and vaping whilst encouraging adult smokers to quit cigarettes.
Source: Washington Post, 22 November 2021
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Yesterday (22 November 2021) the House of Commons considered tobacco amendments to the Health and Care Bill. Many of the MPs who took part in the debate said that they wanted to help the Government improve the provisions. They had suggestions for improvement in several areas. Ministers have pledged to make smoking obsolete in England by 2030. Labour MP Mary Kelly Foy did not think that the measures set out in the Health and Care Bill would achieve that goal.
Mary Kelly Foy MP said: “To sum up, my new clauses address loopholes in the law. They would take incremental and obvious next steps to strengthen tobacco regulation still further, and they would provide the funding that is desperately needed to deliver the Government’s smoke-free 2030 ambition—funding that the spending review failed to deliver. When I was chair of the Gateshead tobacco control alliance, I saw the damage that smoking can do. It shortens life expectancy, increases the pressure on our health services, drives down productivity, and drains wealth from our poorest communities—and for one in every two smokers, it will kill them. Eventually, the Government will have to accept that the measures proposed are necessary. The only question is how long they will wait, and how many lives will be ruined by tobacco in the meantime. I urge the Government to accept these new clauses in full.”
Conservative MP Bob Blackman supported her, also wanting the Government to listen to the views of MPs. Blackman said: “If we look back over the years, the measures on smoking in public places, on smoking in vehicles, on smoking when children are present, and on standardised packaging of tobacco products, were all led from the Back Benches. Governments of all persuasions resisted them, for various reasons. I suspect that my hon. Friend the Minister, whom I know well, may resist these measures tonight, but we on the Back Benches who are determined to improve the health of this country will continue to press on with them, and we will win eventually. It may not be tonight, but those measures will come soon. I support the measures that are proposed.”
Alex Norris MP, Labour shadow public health minister, supported the amendments. Norris said: “Being smoke-free by 2030 is a major national prize, and with that I turn to new clauses 2 to 11, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy). She made an excellent case and has shown tremendous leadership on this issue, in concert with the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), through the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health. They have given the Government a number of really good ways to improve our nation’s efforts and I hope we will hear from the Minister that they will be taken on.”
The Government refused to accept the amendments. The Bill finishes its report stage in the Commons today and will then move to the House of Lords.
You can watch the debate on Today in Parliament here (18:14 - 20:20).
You can read the transcript of the debate here.
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