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** 6 July 2022
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** UK
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** New health secretary named (#1)
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** Sajid Javid: Health Secretary who resigned on the NHS’ birthday (#2)
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** Drive to stub out smoking as three in 20 cancer cases caused by addiction, study finds (#3)
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** International
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** Opinion: I led the US lawsuit against big tobacco for its harmful lies. Big oil is next (#4)
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** US: To reduce smoking rates in prisons, cessation programs must be expanded and extended, research shows (#5)
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** UK
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** New health secretary named
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**
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** Sajid Javid has resigned and been replaced by Steve Barclay as health and social care secretary.

Mr Barclay, previously chief of staff to the prime minister, was reported as having been given the role on Tuesday evening.

Before that he was chief secretary to the Treasury, where he had a reputation for being very hawkish towards the health service, resisting moves to spend more on it. He was also a health minister from January to November 2018.

Mr Barclay said: “It is an honour to take up the position of Health and Social Care Secretary. Our NHS and social care staff have showed us time and again - throughout the pandemic and beyond - what it means to work with compassion and dedication to transform lives. This government is investing more than ever before in our NHS and care services to beat the Covid backlogs, recruit 50,000 more nurses, reform social care and ensure patients across the country can access the care they need.”

Source: HSJ, 5 July 2022
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** Sajid Javid: Health Secretary who resigned on the NHS’ birthday
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**
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** Sajid Javid quit as Health Secretary as the NHS marked its 74th birthday on the 5^th July 2022.
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**
Just five hours before resigning, Mr Javid praised the NHS as the “greatest national institution”.

Javid replaced his predecessor, Matt Hancock on the 26^th June, just days before the UK’s so-called “freedom day”, when remaining Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.

Mr Javid stressed that he was keen to help the NHS resume usual activity and tackle the backlog of care while setting out ambitions to modernise the service. But his plans were waylaid in the autumn as the Omicron wave came to the UK and the national focus returned once more to Covid-19.

It was not until March 2022 that Mr Javid finally gave his first major speech as health secretary, when he set out his priorities for the service – “the four Ps”: prevention, personalisation, performance and people.

Commenting on Mr Javid’s resignation, Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “Trust leaders thank Sajid Javid for his service, particularly in seeing through the biggest health reforms in a decade in the shape of the new Health and Social Care Act and his initiation of the Messenger review of leadership in the NHS.”

“All eyes will be on how the new health and social care secretary addresses major challenges, including serious workforce shortages right across the NHS, the forthcoming NHS pay award amid the cost-of-living crisis, and the government’s New Hospitals Programme, which promises to give the NHS much-needed capital investment to benefit patients and the quality of care.”

“More support for an underfunded and overstretched social care system is also desperately overdue to help to ease mounting pressure in the whole health and care system.”

Source: Express & Star, 5 July 2022
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** Drive to stub out smoking as three in 20 cancer cases caused by addiction, study finds
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**
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** A push for a total smoking ban begins today as data shows it is the cause of every three in 20 cancer cases. Cancer Research UK's biggest campaign wants to make the country smoke free.

Ministers aim to help people to kick the habit by 2030 but analysis says that will be missed by almost a decade. Some 150 cancer cases a day, and one in four deaths, are caused by smoking. It costs the NHS £2.4billion a year.

Chief Executive at Cancer Research UK, Michelle Mitchell said: “Big Tobacco is profiting off our nation’s health. We need urgent action.”

The Stop the Start campaign is calling for measures to prevent youngsters smoking – including raising the age at which tobacco can be bought.

The charity says the four biggest tobacco firms make £900million in UK profits a year. It wants the Government to “seriously consider” an annual charge on the industry for the damage its products cause.

Source: The Express, 5 July 2022
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** International
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** Opinion: I led the US lawsuit against big tobacco for its harmful lies. Big oil is next
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**
Writing in the Guardian, US attorney consultant, Sharon Y Eubanks, highlights the stark similarities between Big Tobacco and Big Oil. Eubanks served as lead council in the federal tobacco litigation United States v Philip Morris USA, et al. She is the co-author of Bad Acts: The Racketeering Case Against the Tobacco Industry.

Eubanks references the case against Philip Morris which proved that the tobacco industry “knew it was selling and marketing a harmful product, that it had funded denial of public health science, and had used deceptive advertising and PR to protect assets instead of protecting consumers”.

Eubanks argues that now, the fossil fuel industry faces the same legal criticisms the tobacco industry has faced: “The behaviour and goals of the tobacco and petroleum industries are pretty similar – and there are many similarities in their liabilities”.

Eubanks highlights how the fossil fuel industry has known of the environmental damage it has caused for several decades, despite claiming otherwise, much like the historical claims of innocence surrounding the health hazards of smoking by the tobacco industry.

Eubanks concludes by stating the fossil fuel industry may be facing a “legal tipping point” at which it will be held accountable for the damage it has caused.

Source: The Guardian, 5 July 2022
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** US: To reduce smoking rates in prisons, cessation programs must be expanded and extended, research shows
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**
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** A new study by researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Southern California, funded by the US National Institutes of Health, has implemented a tobacco-cessation intervention in seven prisons in one US state, measuring rates of smoking relapse.

The study included 177 incarcerated male smokers. On average, participants had been smoking cigarettes for 27 years and were moderately or highly dependent.

Using a group-based counselling model, inmates were provided access to nicotine patches and enrolled in a six-week smoking cessation program.

At the end of each session, participants were given an exhaled carbon monoxide (CO) test to determine whether they continued to smoke or had abstained. At the end of the course, 54 participants were recorded as having quit. Divergence in CO levels among those who had stopped smoking and those who continued began in the fourth week.

The study found that for the program to effectively curb smoking, at least four weeks of direct intervention is required, followed by several months of substance dependence group counselling.

Source: Science Magazine, 5 July 2022
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** See also – Journal of Correctional Health Care - Examining Attitudes, Expectations, and Tobacco Cessation Treatment Outcomes Among Incarcerated Tobacco Smokers ([link removed])
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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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