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** 7 September 2022
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** UK
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** Concern children are being ‘targeted’ by vape companies as figures show huge increase (#1)
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** Truss allies get top jobs as new cabinet announced (#2)
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** Thérèse Coffey: convivial pragmatist inherits health service in crisis (#3)
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** Mark Fullbrook named chief of staff as Truss selects inner circle (#3.5)
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** Child obesity in Darlington: 'bad and getting worse' (#5)
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** International
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** Juul Labs to pay $438.5mn to settle underage vaping investigation by US states (#6)
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** UK
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** Concern children are being ‘targeted’ by vape companies as figures show increase in use
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New data from NHS Digital suggests 9% of 11 to 15-year-olds in England regularly use e-cigarettes, up from 6% in 2018 – the last time the figures were published. The increase in e-cigarette use among 15-year-old girls more than doubled over 2018 to 2021, from 10% to 21%.

The figures come from the Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Young People report, with data collected from 9,289 pupils between September 2021 and February 2022. Despite concerning trends around e-cigarette use, the report also found a decrease in the proportion of children and young people who smoke, from 5% to 3% over the same period - the lowest level ever recorded by the survey.

Discussing the findings, experts have pointed to the availability of disposable devices and their promotion on social media. Although it is illegal to sell e-cigarettes to under-18s, the report found most children can buy them from shops, with 41% going to the newsagent to buy vapes.

Prof Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addictions at King’s College London and author of a forthcoming government evidence review of e-cigarettes, said: “The rise in youth vaping is concerning and we need to understand what lies behind this such as packaging, accessibility, taste or addictiveness. Our response must be proportionate, however, given smoking is a much bigger risk. The government should ensure existing laws are enforced and identify where regulations could be extended.”

Deborah Arnott Chief Executive of ASH said: “The NHS Digital survey shows the same concerning rise in underage vaping as ASH data published in July. Schools, parents and local authorities are looking for help, and ASH has just published guidance on how to tackle youth vaping, available on our website. But while further action on vaping is needed, it is still only a small minority of children vaping and it is encouraging to see that the NHS Digital survey finds youth smoking has continued to decline, as smoking is far more harmful than vaping.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are considering further measures to support our ambition to be smoke-free by 2030 and address the challenges raised in the independent smoking review by Javed Khan. We are clear that vaping should only be used to help people quit smoking – vapes should not be used by people under 18 or non-smokers.”

Source: Independent, 6 September 2022

See also:
The Times - Girls drive sharp rise in child vaping ([link removed].)
Daily Mail - Teenagers´ drug and cigarette use declines as vaping gains popularity ([link removed])
ASH - Resources for local authorities, schools and parents on youth vaping ([link removed])
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** Truss allies get top jobs as new cabinet announced
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Liz Truss has given her allies top cabinet jobs in a major reshuffle hours after being appointed Britain's third female prime minister following a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle earlier.

The new PM gave her first speech outside Downing Street where she said her three early priorities would be the economy, energy and the health service.

Key cabinet appointments so far include:

Chancellor – Kwasi Kwarteng
Home secretary - Suella Braverman
Foreign secretary - James Cleverly
Health Secretary and Deputy prime minister - Therese Coffey
Education secretary - Kit Malthouse
Defence secretary - Ben Wallace
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, running the Cabinet Office - Nadhim Zahawi.
Business, energy and industrial strategy secretary - Jacob Rees-Mogg
Levelling up secretary - Simon Clarke
Environment secretary - Ranil Jayawardena

A full list of cabinet appointments and live updates from the BBC is available via the link below.

Source: BBC, 7 September 2022
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Read further here ([link removed])


** Thérèse Coffey: convivial pragmatist inherits health service in crisis
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Liz Truss has appointed her close aide and Suffolk Coastal MP Thérèse Coffey as the new health and social care secretary – the third in just two months.

Dennis Campbell, the Guardian’s Health policy editor, writes that Coffey, 50, is renowned as a work obsessive, even by parliament’s usual standards. “Her life is basically all about Westminster,” one colleague told the Sunday Times recently. Despite her reputation as a tough taskmaster, though, she is very popular with colleagues.

A colleague says: “Her political views are of the free market and the hard right wing, including strong anti-abortion views.” But a Tory insider disagrees. “Her political worldview is very pragmatic,” they say. Friends say her Catholicism is also a key influence.

A colleague during her time as work and pensions secretary adds that Coffey “can come over in public as harsh and lacking empathy”. Campbell suggests this could prove damaging when talking in her new role about the many difficulties facing the NHS, given that health ministers need to show they understand the challenges facing patients and staff. Her most pressing problems in her new department are the long delays facing ambulance crews waiting to hand patients over to A&E staff, patients’ difficulty getting GP appointments and the fact that about one in eight hospital beds in England is occupied by someone who is medically fit to leave – but cannot be discharged because social care is unavailable to keep them safe.

In an opening address to staff at the DHSC, Coffey twice repeated an “ABCD mantra”: ambulances, backlogs, care, doctors and dentistry. With worsening healthcare staff shortages and Truss’s pledge to cancel the 1.25% rise in national insurance which began in April and was expected to yield £12bn a year for the NHS, speculation on Coffey’s strategy to deliver on this ABCD mantra is high.

Source: Guardian, 7 September 2022
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** Mark Fullbrook named chief of staff as Truss selects inner circle
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Liz Truss has started appointing advisers to her inner circle, with political consultant Mark Fullbrook taking the top job as chief of staff and Ruth Porter getting the deputy chief role.

Fullbrook is a political consultant who has worked for decades with Lynton Crosby, the electoral strategist with tobacco industry ties, after he co-ran her campaign.

Porter is a former adviser to Truss from her time as justice secretary, who subsequently worked for the London Stock Exchange and FGS Global, the communications firm.

Others entering No 10 include Sophie Jarvis, a policy adviser who formerly worked for the Adam Smith Institute, a rightwing thinktank. Matt Sinclair, who formerly worked for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, campaigning for lower taxes, will become her economics chief.

Fullbrook, who was Truss’s co-campaign director, is entering government after a long-term partnership with Crosby as a political consultant. He struck out on his own this year with a new company, Fullbrook Strategies, which has lobbied the UK government on behalf of Libya’s controversial parliament and a company that won the biggest PPE deal of the pandemic through the VIP fast-track lane.

Fullbrook’s company, which has stopped its commercial activities in the last few days, previously acted for Libya’s House of Representatives, which has twice attempted to overthrow the UN-established government of national unity in Tripoli, and Santé Global, formerly Unispace Health, which was awarded the largest pandemic PPE contract via the VIP fast-track lane.

Source: Guardian, 6 September 2022

See also: Tobacco Tactics – Crosby Textor Group ([link removed])
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** Child obesity in Darlington: 'bad and getting worse'

Child obesity levels in Darlington are "significantly worse" than across the country, with links drawn to deepening poverty.

Councillor Matthew Snedker pointed to poverty figures for under-16s in Darlington - 25.8% in absolute low income families, 28.5% in relative low income families - which was "bad and getting worse". He said: "We already know the multiplying effect of growing up in poverty and how it has a long shadow over people's lives. All the good work done within public health has to counter the fact that over a quarter of children are growing up in a poor household."

Councillor Cyndi Hughes, commenting on the number of takeaways per head in the town (at the second highest in the UK) urged for action from the Director of Public Health on planning or licensing conditions as a means to tackle obesity rates.

Public health principal Ken Ross said such initiatives were “not a magic bullet but [...] a step in the right direction”, saying work was “ongoing”.

Source: Northern Echo, 7 September 2022
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** International
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** Juul Labs to pay $438.5mn to settle underage vaping investigation by US states

Juul Labs must pay $438.5mn under a settlement with dozens of US attorneys-general after their two-year investigation concluded it had “cynically” advertised vaping products to underage users.

The settlement with 33 states and Puerto Rico will resolve one of the biggest legal threats facing Juul, in which the tobacco company Altria has a 35% stake, amounting to about 25% of Juul’s US sales of $1.9bn last year. The announcement on Tuesday follows earlier deals to resolve litigation with four other states.

The investigation found Juul had risen to dominate the e-cigarette market “by wilfully engaging in an advertising campaign that appealed to youth”, marketing its e-cigarettes to underage teens with launch parties, product giveaways and ads and social media posts using youthful models, according to a statement. Other strategies included manipulating their chemical composition to be palatable to inexperienced users and employing an inadequate age verification process, said William Tong, the Connecticut attorney-general who led the settlement.

Other legal challenges remain unresolved. Juul is still contesting litigation from nine other attorneys-general. Some states that had started investigations but had not begun litigation did not join the settlement, and the company faces thousands of personal injury lawsuits from consumers.

The company currently makes up about one-third of the US retail vaping market, down from 75% several years ago. Juul is fighting a “marketing denial order” issued by the US Food and Drug Administration in June that could force it to withdraw its brands from the US, which accounts for more than 90% of its global sales. Juul has submitted an appeal, calling the FDA’s order “substantively and procedurally flawed”.

The legal and regulatory threats facing Juul have sharply cut the value of Altria’s stake. After paying $12.8bn for the Juul stake in 2018, the supplier of Marlboro brand cigarettes in the US more recently valued its investment at $450mn.

Source: Financial Times, 6 September 2022

See also: Guardian - Juul to pay $440m after years-long investigation into teen vaping ([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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