Beyond the plea to divest from funding tobacco companies,
shareholders need to consider the adverse impact of investing in
industries and resource extraction that worsen eco-degradation.
At a group level, the impetus for environmentally accountable
investing by colleges and universities can be better maintained by
teaching every student the practical ways to minimize th...
Beyond the plea to divest from funding tobacco companies,
shareholders need to consider the adverse impact of investing in
industries and resource extraction that worsen eco-degradation.
At a group level, the impetus for environmentally accountable
investing by colleges and universities can be better maintained by
teaching every student the practical ways to minimize their community's
ecological footprint. Mandatory ecology courses delivered to young minds
could incite a life-long pledge to heightened civic responsibility. It
holds potential to cultivate future leaders that will cogitate for not
just sustainable investment in centres of higher learning but become
strong advocates for environmentally friendly policy and industry in the
wider world. Students' concerted demands for sustainable investment on
campus are a positive, but only a first step.
The long-term commitment to lessening ecological degradation through
informed protest, "maintaining the rage," policy debate and green
innovation comprise better imprinted values that can be passed on to
children and grandchildren. The latter is best achieved through formal
education on humanity's impact on the natural world.
Henley et al’s paper (1) showing worse health outcomes in men
switching from cigarettes to smokeless tobacco, compared with men ceasing
tobacco use completely, adds to our understanding of the potential risks
from smokeless tobacco use. However, it also raises some additional
questions:
1. Like the authors’ earlier paper comparing health outcomes in
exclusive smokers with those of exclusive smokeless users in C...
Henley et al’s paper (1) showing worse health outcomes in men
switching from cigarettes to smokeless tobacco, compared with men ceasing
tobacco use completely, adds to our understanding of the potential risks
from smokeless tobacco use. However, it also raises some additional
questions:
1. Like the authors’ earlier paper comparing health outcomes in
exclusive smokers with those of exclusive smokeless users in CPS-II (2),
this paper did not report a comparison with those people who continued to
smoke. Papers by other groups examining the health outcomes from potential
harm-reducing behavior changes (3,4) have presented the whole picture,
comparing the outcomes for continuing smokers, never smokers and those
making the potentially less harmful change (e.g. reducing cigarette
consumption). Occasionally clinicians are asked by smokers who don’t want
to quit tobacco, whether their health risks would be reduced by switching
to smokeless tobacco. This question may come up more frequently with some
of the major cigarette manufacturers now test-marketing smokeless
products. The CPS studies have the data to help answer that question. The
public should be informed just how much their chances of premature death
from lung cancer, COPD etc are likely to be reduced by using smokeless
tobacco rather than smoking. The authors should be encouraged to analyze
and publish those data as well. A survival curve comparing never tobacco
users, smokers and smokeless tobacco users would be helpful, as would the
adjusted risks of each tobacco-related disease for each group.
2. Also like the previous paper (2), this study found raised risks of
death from lung cancer and COPD among those who switched to smokeless
tobacco. For example, among snuff users (27% of switchers), the adjusted
hazard ratios for all cause mortality (1.11, 95% CI=0.94-1.3), coronary
heart disease (1.12: 0.82-1.53) and stroke (0.89: 0.49-1.62) were not
significantly elevated, and were lower than those for lung cancer (1.75:
1.2-2.5) and COPD (1.68: 0.9-3.3). The authors have pointed out the
possibility that the increased lung cancer risk could be caused by
circulating carcinogens from the tobacco. However, the authors did not
speculate on the possible cause of increased risk of death from COPD among
those switching to smokeless tobacco compared with those quitting
completely. It is hard to think of mechanisms that do not involve
increased exposure to smoke, either from secondhand smoke, or increased
smoking (including smoking other substances) before or after recruitment
to the study. It would be useful to hear the authors’ thoughts on what
caused the smokeless users’ raised COPD risks, and also how that might
affect interpretation of the other raised risks found in these studies
(i.e. are these effects likely due to confounding with smoke exposure,
rather than smokeless use per se?).
3. This excellent study by the American Cancer Society reported
increased risks of cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx (HR=2.5, CI=1.2-
5.7), based on 7 deaths in switchers, and the previous paper comparing
exclusive smokeless users with never tobacco users in CPS-II found an
adjusted hazard ratio for oropharynx cancer of 0.90 (0.12-6.71). The US
American Cancer Society website currently states that:
“Smokeless tobacco ("snuff" or chewing tobacco) is associated with
cancers of the cheek, gums, and inner surface of the lips. Smokeless
tobacco increases the risk of these cancers by about 50 times.” (5)
The authors have previously stated that, “We do believe that there
has been inadequate concern about potential adverse risks of spit tobacco
use”(6). In fact the available evidence suggests that the public
drastically overestimates the relative risks from smokeless tobacco. For
example, only 11% of smokers believe that smokeless is less harmful than
cigarettes (7). Perhaps the information on the ACS website should be
updated to be more consistent with the results of these two ACS studies so
as not to add to the public’s biased perception?
Lastly, this paper is important to informing the harm reduction
debate as it pertains to smokeless tobacco, but it only contributes to
part of the story. It fails to point out that the largest difference in
risk is likely to be the one between switchers and continuing smokers,
while the difference between switchers and complete quitters is relatively
small. It is not surprising that those that switch to another form of
tobacco may have elevated health risks compared to those who quit tobacco
entirely. But what is sorely needed is analysis of the risks of switching
to a potentially less harmful tobacco product (smokeless) versus
continuing to smoke the most deadly form of tobacco, the manufactured
cigarette.
1. Henley SJ, Connell CJ, Richter P, Husten C, Pechacek T, Calle EE,
Thun MJ. Tobacco-related disease mortality among men who switched from
cigarette to spit tobacco. Tobacco Control 2007;16:22-28
2. Henley SJ, Thun MJ, Connell C, Calle EE. (2005) Two large
prospective studies of mortality among men who use snuff or chewing
tobacco (United States). Cancer Causes and Control 16:347-358
3. Godtfredsen NS, Holst C, Prescott E, Vestbo J, Osler M. Smoking
reduction, smoking cessation, and mortality: a 16-year follow-up of 19,732
men and women from The Copenhagen Centre for Prospective Population
Studies. Am J Epidemiol. 2002 Dec 1;156(11):994-1001.
4. Tverdal A, Bjartveit K. Health consequences of reduced daily
cigarette consumption. Tob Control. 2006 Dec;15(6):472-80.
5. www.cancer.org “Detailed Guide: Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal
Cancer What Are The Risk Factors for Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal
Cancer?” (accessed Feb 14, 2007)
6. Henley SJ, Thun MJ. Response to: Foulds J and Ramstrom L letter
regarding "Causal effects of smokeless tobacco on mortality in CPS-I and
CPS-II". Cancer Causes Control. 2006 Aug;17(6):857-8.
7. O'Connor RJ, Hyland A, Giovino GA, Fong GT, Cummings KM. Smoker
awareness of and beliefs about supposedly less-harmful tobacco products.Am
J Prev Med. 2005 Aug;29(2):85-90.
NOT PEER REVIEWED
The authors of the paper "Contribution of smoking-related and alcohol-related deaths to the gender gap in mortality: evidence from 30 European countries" use the WHO indicators of alcohol-related and smoking-related causes of deaths and state that this even underestimates the scope of influence of alcohol and tobacco use on mortality. In fact, however, it is an enormous overestimate. In case of Ukraine, to consid...
NOT PEER REVIEWED
The authors of the paper "Contribution of smoking-related and alcohol-related deaths to the gender gap in mortality: evidence from 30 European countries" use the WHO indicators of alcohol-related and smoking-related causes of deaths and state that this even underestimates the scope of influence of alcohol and tobacco use on mortality. In fact, however, it is an enormous overestimate. In case of Ukraine, to consider just one example, the WHO HFA database shows that in 2004 male "smoking-related mortality" was 1081 per 100,000 population. However, all-cause male mortality for the same year was 1920. So 56% of all deaths were to be considered smoking-related deaths. The respective figures for women were the following: 586, 978, and 60%. Even if we ignore the fact that female smoking prevalence in Ukraine was about four times lower than among males, it is obvious that smoking could not cause so many deaths even for men. The WHO HFA definition of "selected smoking-related causes" stresses that it is NOT the estimate of tobacco-attributable mortality. Actually "selected smoking-related causes" include 100% ischaemic heart disease mortality + 100% cerebrovascular diseases mortality + 100% chronic obstructive pulmonary disease mortality + 100% some cancers mortality. Such approach gives fantastic results: according to the WHO HFA database, in Uzbekistan, where female daily smoking rate is just 1%, "smoking related mortality" is three times higher than in Austria, where this rate is 41%.
In the Discussion, the authors compare the 'WHO definitions' to 'Peto's method' while these two are not measuring same things. So-called 'WHO smoking-related mortality' may be even not associated to the smoking-attributable mortality when the latter is estimated thoroughly. I have already asked the WHO officials to delete "selected smoking-related causes" indicator from the WHO HFA database because it is very misleading. Using such a misleading indicator to estimate the tobacco contribution into the gender gap in mortality could not provide realistic estimates. Tobacco control should be evidence-based and overestimating number of smoking-related deaths does more harm than good for tobacco control efforts.
Konstantin Krasovsky,
Head of Tobacco Control Unit
Ukrainian Institute of Strategic Research of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine
krasovskyk@gmail.com
NOT PEER REVIEWED To the Editors,
In the article entitled, "Weight control belief and its impact on the
effectiveness of tobacco control policies on quit attempts: findings from
the ITC 4 Country Project" I noticed a problem regarding the measurement
of weight control beliefs. This variable (weight control beliefs
associated with tobacco use) is measured using only one question. The
researchers indicate, "In order to iden...
NOT PEER REVIEWED To the Editors,
In the article entitled, "Weight control belief and its impact on the
effectiveness of tobacco control policies on quit attempts: findings from
the ITC 4 Country Project" I noticed a problem regarding the measurement
of weight control beliefs. This variable (weight control beliefs
associated with tobacco use) is measured using only one question. The
researchers indicate, "In order to identify weight concerns related to
smoking, we exploit a question that measures smokers' level of agreement
with the following statement using a 5-point scale (strongly agree, agree,
neither agree nor disagree, disagree and strongly disagree): Smoking helps
weight control" (Shang et. al, p.2, 2015). This statement illustrates the
limited manner in which the aforementioned variable was measured. While
the limitation of weight control beliefs being analyzed using self-
reporting was addressed, the limitation of using only one question to
measure this variable was not. In the study entitled, "Smoking
Expectancies, Weight Concerns, and Dietary Behaviors in Adolescence" the
authors noted that they used the appetite control factor of the Smoking
Consequences Questionnaire (SCQ) to determine weight control beliefs. The
author of "Smoking Expectancies, Weight Concerns, and Dietary Behaviors in
Adolescence indicates, "Participants who endorsed smoking were given 5
possible consequences of smoking and were asked to rate the likelihood of
each consequence on a 10-point scale from 'completely unlikely' to
'completely likely.' The statements included, 'Smoking controls my
appetite,' 'Smoking keeps my weight down,' 'Cigarettes keep me from
overeating,' 'Cigarettes keep me from eating more than I should,' and,
'Smoking helps me control my weight.' Scores were an average across all
items" (Cavallo et. al., p. 68, 2010). This multifaceted approach to
measuring a variable is a more thorough and a more accurate measure of the
weight control variable. This more detailed measure, as indicted by the
author, has been measured by three different criteria: internal
consistence, degree of factor loading, and coefficient significance (.72
to .97). This measure starkly compares to the measure used in the article,
"Weight control belief and its impact on the effectiveness of tobacco
control policies on quit attempts: findings from the ITC 4 Country
Project", which was only measured in its degree of sensitivity.
References
Cavallo, D. A., Smith, A. E., Schepis, T. S., Desai, R., Potenza, M.
N., & Krishnan-Sarin, S.
(2010). Smoking expectancies, weight concerns, and dietary behaviors in
adolescence. Pediatrics, 126(1), e66-e72.
Shang, C., Chaloupka, F. J., Fong, G. T., Thompson, M., Siahpush, M.,
& Ridgeway, W. (2015). Weight control belief and its impact on the
effectiveness of tobacco control policies on quit attempts: findings from
the ITC 4 Country Project. Tobacco control. doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-
2014-051886
Tobacco control has instigated a level of prejudice against an
identifiable group of people that if we were a minority or gay would be
quite rightly simply unacceptable. We have to put up with outrageous
language too and have a database where we keep the best examples.
"Smoke in your own home. Get cancer. Die. Just keep it away from me,
that's all I ask.
Tobacco control has instigated a level of prejudice against an
identifiable group of people that if we were a minority or gay would be
quite rightly simply unacceptable. We have to put up with outrageous
language too and have a database where we keep the best examples.
"Smoke in your own home. Get cancer. Die. Just keep it away from me,
that's all I ask.
"..let's have free loaded pistols for use by these smokers there too
so that they can end their pathetic lives in a dignified way and save us
and our already burdened health systems a lot of problems."
We save them for posterity. In the 3rd link below is a UK government
survey of trends on happiness and I can only concur.
"We use three waves of the British Household Panel Survey to examine
whether changes in smoking behaviour are correlated with life satisfaction
and whether the recent ban on smoking in public places in England, Wales
and Northern Ireland has affected this relationship. We find that smokers
who reduced their daily consumption of cigarettes after the ban report
significantly lower levels of life satisfaction compared to those who did
not change their smoking habits, with heavy smokers particularly affected.
No such finding is reported for previous years."
I feel sorry mostly for the old people who smoke. They lived through
wars, only to have their freedom to smoke in a bar taken away from them.
Loneliness is a killer.
Perhaps what really sticks in my throat is that the anti tobacco
movement is based on the entirely false premise that second hand smoke is
harmful. To pervert a true science for funding, personal prejudice and
power just makes me very angry. You have no idea how I resent not being
able to smoke inside anymore. You have no idea how you have compromised my
life. Tobacco control has also set an awful president for state control of
private property which I believe is an appalling situation to have.
Foulds and Ramström raise important questions regarding a direct
comparison of mortality rates among smokers, smokeless tobacco (ST) users,
persons with mixed or former use, and non-users. They urge officials from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and from the American
Cancer Society (ACS) to make these comparisons and report the results, so
that Americans are fully informed about the health risks relate...
Foulds and Ramström raise important questions regarding a direct
comparison of mortality rates among smokers, smokeless tobacco (ST) users,
persons with mixed or former use, and non-users. They urge officials from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and from the American
Cancer Society (ACS) to make these comparisons and report the results, so
that Americans are fully informed about the health risks related to
tobacco use. But there is a simpler and more compelling solution: The
CDC must release publicly all data it uses to estimate the relative risks
and mortality rates among tobacco users.
Every year the CDC publishes statistics concerning how many Americans
smoke, and how many Americans die as a consequence (1,2). These
statistics form the raison d’être for current tobacco policies at all
levels of American government – and for the massive regulatory scheme
currently under consideration by the U.S. Congress.
The data from which the CDC estimates prevalence of tobacco use are
publicly available from the National Health Interview Surveys. In stark
contrast, the data from which the CDC estimates deaths from tobacco use
are not available to researchers outside the agency or its collaborator,
the ACS. Instead, the CDC takes a black-box approach of filtering
information on mortality through its online program called Smoking-
Attributable Mortality, Morbidity, and Economic Costs (SAMMEC) (3).
But SAMMEC is marginally informative, and utterly unsatisfactory. It
does not provide any information comparing the mortality experience of
smokers and ST users. It cannot even provide simple statistics like the
number of deaths among current and former smokers. In 2006 I submitted a
request for these data through the SAMMEC web site. I received this
unsigned response from the CDC Office on Smoking and Health: “Data are not
available for current or former smokers separately.”
The public release by the CDC of data relating to tobacco-related
mortality will also place the agency in compliance with the intention of
the NIH Data Sharing Policy (4), which states that “data sharing is
essential for expedited translation of research results into knowledge,
products, and procedures to improve human health.”
Brad Rodu
Professor of Medicine
Endowed Chair, Tobacco Harm Reduction Research
University of Louisville
Competing Interests: Dr. Rodu's research is supported by
unrestricted grants from two smokeless tobacco manufacturers to the
University of Louisville. More information is available at
www.smokersonly.org
References
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2005: Cigarette
smoking among adults – United States, 2004. MMWR 54:1121-1124.
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005: Annual smoking-
attributable mortality and years of potential life lost, and productivity
losses – United States. MMWR 54:625-628. 1997–2001.
3. Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Morbidity, and Economic Costs
(SAMMEC). Available at: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/sammec/login.asp
4. NIH Data Sharing Policy. Available at:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/data_sharing/
Despite the seemingly decline in tobacco use, the habit is picked up
by youths on a daily basis. According to the CDC fact sheet, tobacco use
is established primarily during adolescence where 9 out of 10 cigarette
smokers first initiate smoking by age 18. In the United States, more than
3,800 youths aged 18 years or younger try their first cigarette every day
[1]. If the trend continues, about 5....
Despite the seemingly decline in tobacco use, the habit is picked up
by youths on a daily basis. According to the CDC fact sheet, tobacco use
is established primarily during adolescence where 9 out of 10 cigarette
smokers first initiate smoking by age 18. In the United States, more than
3,800 youths aged 18 years or younger try their first cigarette every day
[1]. If the trend continues, about 5.6 million Americans that are less
than 18 years will die early from a smoking-related illness i.e. 1 of
every 13 young Americans will lose their lives to tobacco use [1]. These
figures are disturbing, and though tobacco control is at the forefront in
trying to reduce these mortalities from tobacco use, the road ahead seems
long and weary.
In 2007, a study using modelling techniques showed that increasing
the smoking age would lead to a drop in youth smoking prevalence from 22%
to under 9% for the 15- 17 year old age [2]. Another study done in
England, also found that increasing the age for legal purchase of tobacco
was associated with reduction in smoking [3]. According to a study done in
1996, "adopting the tobacco policy of raising the legal age would delaying
the initiation of smoking if it succeeds"[4]. And that it might also
contribute to the reduction of smoking-related mortality and morbidity in
the youth[4].
In this current study, the authors showed that the Needham community
in Massachusetts has achieved success with this policy by comparing the
youth smoking trends in this community with surrounding nearby communities
that have not raised the legal age for tobacco purchase [5]. Their results
showed that there was a greater decline in youth smoking in Needham due to
an increase in the legal smoking age relative to the other communities.
Although this study shows promising results for the immediate effects of
decline in tobacco use, it should be noted that present day youths now
have the leisure of purchasing alternative tobacco products in the form of
e-cigarettes, hookahs and smokeless tobacco. It is reported that nearly 4
of every 100 middle school students in 2014 use e-cigarettes, 3 in 100 had
used hookah and more than 5 in 100 currently use smokeless tobacco [1].
Enacting the policy on increasing the legal age to purchase tobacco
should be thoroughly comprehensive to include alternative tobacco products
as well. Though, the future of tobacco control seems daunting, it is still
worth a try to raise the legal age of tobacco purchase in order to curb
the sequelae of a lifelong addiction that has deleterious health effects.
2. Ahmad. (2007). Limiting youth access to tobacco: Comparing the
long-term health impacts of increasing cigarette excise taxes and raising
the legal smoking age to 21 in the united states. Health Policy
(Amsterdam), 80(3), 378; 378-391; 391.
3. Millett, C., Lee, J. T., Gibbons, D. C., & Glantz, S. A.
(2011). Increasing the age for the
legal purchase of tobacco in England: Impacts on socio-economic
disparities in youth smoking. Thorax, 66(10), 862-865.
4. Breslau, N. (1996). Smoking cessation in young adults: Age at
initiation of cigarette smoking and other suspected influences. American
Journal of Public Health (1971), 86(2), 214.
5. Schneider, S. K., Buka, S. L., Dash, K., Winickoff, J.P.,
O'Donell, L. (2015). Community reductions in youth smoking after raising
the minimum tobacco sales age to 21. Tobacco Control
doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2014-052207
On March 15 2007, my attention was drawn to a patent for a tobacco
smoking device, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
for a "Hookah with simplified lighting" on June 9 2005. One of the authors
of the device being patented was Kamal Chaouachi, who on December 2 2004,
had a rapid response published in Tobacco Control [1] which was critical
of a paper by Masiak et al [2]. The submission process for rapid...
On March 15 2007, my attention was drawn to a patent for a tobacco
smoking device, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
for a "Hookah with simplified lighting" on June 9 2005. One of the authors
of the device being patented was Kamal Chaouachi, who on December 2 2004,
had a rapid response published in Tobacco Control [1] which was critical
of a paper by Masiak et al [2]. The submission process for rapid responses
asks authors to “Please declare any competing interests”. I noted that Dr
Chaouachi’s letter contained no competing interest statement and so wrote
to him requesting that he submit a further rapid response which would
clarify his competing interest.
He duly submitted two rapid responses. The first, which I have not
published but retained, simply said “no competing interests”. I replied
that this brief response was unacceptable and that in the circumstances of
the revelation about his ostensible interest in the smoking
device, he should elaborate in a further rapid response.
In the second response Dr Chaouachi stated that he had signed away his rights “in
the presence of a State Attorney” to his tobacco smoking invention patent
on June 15 2005, some six days after the US patent was filed. Dr Chaouachi reiterated that “I had no competing interest at the time my Letter to the
Editor entitled 'Serious Effors in this Study" was sent to the Tobacco Control Journal.”
This last statement, in fact, is false. I am in possession of a report
from the French patent office (Bulletin Officiel De La Propriete
Industrielle Brevets D'Invention). At page 18 a patent in the names of
Billard, Chaouachi (Kamal), and De La Giraudiere is described. The patent
number is 04 06287, the company filing the patent is "Shishamania
International", the title of the patent is "NARGUILLE A ALLUMAGE
SIMPLIFIE". The date of filing is June 10 2004.
Thus, the US patent, filed at the US PTO on June 9, 2005, was first
filed in France on June 10, 2004. Dr Chaouachi’s e-letter was submitted
on December 2 2004. Therefore, the e-letter was submitted after the
French patent was filed, and before the date on which he reports
that he relinquished his rights to the patent.
In further correspondence during March 17, I confronted Dr Chaouachi
with the fact that his device had been registered with the French patent
authorities in June 2004 and that therefore he had made a false statement
in his declaration of no competing interests. He replied “This is not
"false statement" (!). … The French patent was filed at the date you
said. You are probably right as I cannot say myself so far when it was. I
have been informed of procedure. This is all.”
In summary, at the date Dr Chaouachi submitted his rapid response, he had a commercial interest in the subject of that submission. He did not declare this
interest. When later given the opportunity to do so, he maintained that he
had no competing interest at the time of writing his rapid response. He did not voluntarily declare that the patent had in fact been filed in France in June 2004.
In such circumstances, it is Tobacco Control’s policy to inform
offending authors’ institutions of such conduct. Dr Chaouachi would appear
to not be currently working for any institution. Tobacco Control is
unwilling to accept any further submissions from Dr Chaouachi.
Simon Chapman
Editor
1. Chaouachi K. Serious Errors in this Study.
http://tc.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/13/4/327 rapid response
2. Maziak W, Ward KD, Afifi Soweid RA, Eissenberg T. Tobacco smoking
using a waterpipe: a re-emerging strain in a global epidemic
Tob Control 2004; 13: 327-333
NOT PEER REVIEWED
Please can I make a few points in response.
First, in the UK at least, the individual commenters and blog writers
who criticise the anti tobacco movement do not, in general, receive money
or favours from, or have any connection with the Tobacco Industry. FOREST
does receive money from the tobacco industry and doesn't hide the fact.
The anti tobacco movement receives money and favours (sponsored...
NOT PEER REVIEWED
Please can I make a few points in response.
First, in the UK at least, the individual commenters and blog writers
who criticise the anti tobacco movement do not, in general, receive money
or favours from, or have any connection with the Tobacco Industry. FOREST
does receive money from the tobacco industry and doesn't hide the fact.
The anti tobacco movement receives money and favours (sponsored
conferences, for example), from the drug companies which benefit from
smoking bans, by increased sales of their alternative nicotine delivery
systems.
Second, your have distorted the facts regarding smoking bans. The
English smoking ban covers all non-residential buildings - public and
private - and secure mental hospitals. It was ostensibly brought in to
protect employees: not to prevent customers "smelling like an ashtray".
That may be their choice. The English ban covers private clubs staffed by
volunteers. This clearly goes beyond protecting workers, or even keeping
the clothes of the public sweet-smelling. That the ban covers secure
mental hospitals, which are the homes of the most vulnerable members of
society is a national disgrace.
Third, The evidence that second hand smoke causes significant harm is
controversial. Members of the anti tobacco movement have admitted as much
- that any kind of statistical fraud is justified. Those on the more
scholarly wing of the movement, such as Sir Richard Peto and the late Sir
Richard Doll, have publicly stated that any harm is small or negligible
and impossible to measure.
Finally, you receive hate mail because many people perceive you as
having ruined their lives. They no longer go out and meet other people.
They no longer go for a relaxing drink after work. And, to rub it in,
their taxes are used to support anti tobacco groups; and they fund one
tenth of the NHS, 10 billion pounds, through tax applied to tobacco.
You and your readers may be interested in the article linked to
below, which also criticises your lack of support for snus, an oral
tobacco product which is responsible for Sweden having both the lowest
male smoking prevalence and the lowest male lung cancer incidence in the
developed world.
The BAT lobbying event on "corporate social responsibility" was
luckily not only critisized by Dr Jean King, but widely boycotted by major
Brussels based organisations and stakeholders. The initiative was
spearhheaded by the European Respiratory Society (ERS), following the
invitation to the BAT event by, among others, the Chairperson of the
Health and Environment Committee of the European Parliament. Signatories
to the...
The BAT lobbying event on "corporate social responsibility" was
luckily not only critisized by Dr Jean King, but widely boycotted by major
Brussels based organisations and stakeholders. The initiative was
spearhheaded by the European Respiratory Society (ERS), following the
invitation to the BAT event by, among others, the Chairperson of the
Health and Environment Committee of the European Parliament. Signatories
to the joint letter to the co-hosts, MEP John Bowis, MEP Jules Maaten, and
the moderator, former Commissioner Pavel Telicka, was signed by: Fiona
Godfrey, EU Policy Advisor, ERS, Deborah Arnott, Director, ASH UK, Jean
King, Director of Behavioural Research and Tobacco Control, Cancer
Research UK, Yves Martinet, President, Comité National Contre le
Tabagisme, Luk Joossens, Advocacy officer, European Cancer Leagues,
Susanne Logstrup, Director, European Heart Network, and Lara Garrido
Herrero, Secretary General, European Public Health Alliance.
The letter expressed the collective disappointment regarding the role
of the co-hosts, well known public health advocates, and aked for
reconsideration. It also questioned the European Parliament as a venue for
such a lobbying event, especially on CSR, especially as 'considerable
evidence [...] suggest[s] that BAT does not meet even the most basic
requirements of the UN Global Compact on corporate social responsibility'
(ERS letter, 3rd January 2007).
Among other professional associations, the Standing Committee of
European Doctors (CPME), refrained from attending this so called
'stakeholder discussion', following the call from ERS and its partners.
NOT PEER REVIEWED To the Editor:
Beyond the plea to divest from funding tobacco companies, shareholders need to consider the adverse impact of investing in industries and resource extraction that worsen eco-degradation.
At a group level, the impetus for environmentally accountable investing by colleges and universities can be better maintained by teaching every student the practical ways to minimize th...
Henley et al’s paper (1) showing worse health outcomes in men switching from cigarettes to smokeless tobacco, compared with men ceasing tobacco use completely, adds to our understanding of the potential risks from smokeless tobacco use. However, it also raises some additional questions:
1. Like the authors’ earlier paper comparing health outcomes in exclusive smokers with those of exclusive smokeless users in C...
NOT PEER REVIEWED To the Editors, In the article entitled, "Weight control belief and its impact on the effectiveness of tobacco control policies on quit attempts: findings from the ITC 4 Country Project" I noticed a problem regarding the measurement of weight control beliefs. This variable (weight control beliefs associated with tobacco use) is measured using only one question. The researchers indicate, "In order to iden...
NOT PEER REVIEWED
Tobacco control has instigated a level of prejudice against an identifiable group of people that if we were a minority or gay would be quite rightly simply unacceptable. We have to put up with outrageous language too and have a database where we keep the best examples.
"Smoke in your own home. Get cancer. Die. Just keep it away from me, that's all I ask.
"..let's have free l...
Foulds and Ramström raise important questions regarding a direct comparison of mortality rates among smokers, smokeless tobacco (ST) users, persons with mixed or former use, and non-users. They urge officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and from the American Cancer Society (ACS) to make these comparisons and report the results, so that Americans are fully informed about the health risks relate...
To the Editor,
Despite the seemingly decline in tobacco use, the habit is picked up by youths on a daily basis. According to the CDC fact sheet, tobacco use is established primarily during adolescence where 9 out of 10 cigarette smokers first initiate smoking by age 18. In the United States, more than 3,800 youths aged 18 years or younger try their first cigarette every day [1]. If the trend continues, about 5....
On March 15 2007, my attention was drawn to a patent for a tobacco smoking device, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a "Hookah with simplified lighting" on June 9 2005. One of the authors of the device being patented was Kamal Chaouachi, who on December 2 2004, had a rapid response published in Tobacco Control [1] which was critical of a paper by Masiak et al [2]. The submission process for rapid...
NOT PEER REVIEWED Please can I make a few points in response.
First, in the UK at least, the individual commenters and blog writers who criticise the anti tobacco movement do not, in general, receive money or favours from, or have any connection with the Tobacco Industry. FOREST does receive money from the tobacco industry and doesn't hide the fact. The anti tobacco movement receives money and favours (sponsored...
The BAT lobbying event on "corporate social responsibility" was luckily not only critisized by Dr Jean King, but widely boycotted by major Brussels based organisations and stakeholders. The initiative was spearhheaded by the European Respiratory Society (ERS), following the invitation to the BAT event by, among others, the Chairperson of the Health and Environment Committee of the European Parliament. Signatories to the...
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