Parliament’s tobacco products directive rapporteur Linda McAvan told theparliament.com, “The biggest worry for me is that more young people smoke than adults in the European Union.

“We have to do something to tackle the recruitment of children and young people into smoking.”

The British MEP, who is a member of parliament’s environment, public health and food safety committee, said that 28 per cent of European citizens’ smoke. According to the European commission, the figure for 15 to 24-year-olds is slightly higher, at 29 per cent.

Tobacco packaging is considered to be a crucial aspect of the directive because it is about how the industry sells its products, she said.

With some cigarette packages designed to resemble perfumes and others advertising chocolate flavoured tobacco products, McAvan said, “We know from the tobacco companies themselves that they are designed to attract young women.

“But we know its children and young girls who buy these, so we think this kind of packaging should go.”

McAvan wants to see picture warnings on the packaging of tobacco products, with images of the health effects of smoking clearly visible.

“We want packaging with big photographs, big warnings because that puts people off smoking,” she said.

She added, “The tobacco industry says it has no impact, but then why have they employed some 70 new lobbyists to lobby the European parliament?”

On the issue of e-cigarettes, McAvan said, “We’ve taken a lot of evidence about e-cigarettes and the evidence I’ve seen tells me that for people that smoke e-cigarettes can help in terms of harm reduction.

“So I don’t want to see e-cigarettes disappear from the market, I want them to be available for smokers. What I don’t want though, is to see young people start using e-cigarettes who have never smoked.”

The Socialist MEP said that schools in the UK have had to ban e-cigarettes to prevent children from bringing them in.

“We have no laws, we have no regulation of e-cigarettes, so what I want is a regulatory framework,” she said.

“I do think we need some regulation about the quality of e-cigarettes, about manufacturing processes to make sure they’re safe because they mainly come from China, and even the companies themselves know that there are problems with the way they’re manufactured.

“We need to make sure they’re available widely on the market so that they can compete with cigarettes.

“That’s why medicines regulation wouldn’t work in many countries, because in many countries you can only buy medicines at a pharmacy, you can’t buy them when you’re out on a Friday night.

“So that’s why I proposed a system of regulation which doesn’t go as far as making them medicines but nevertheless will stop them becoming gateway products for young people.”

The tobacco directive includes proposals for a pre-authorisation process for all new tobacco products on the EU market.

In explaining how this would be managed, McAvan said, “In the US they do have a pre-authorisation system for all new tobacco products, which is managed by the food and drug administration (FDA).

“We don’t have an FDA, but each country does have national regulators who regulate health products.

“It seems a little bit strange to me that we would allow tobacco companies to place new products on the market, and then we try to catch up and find out what was in them after.

“Tobacco products are harmful, they kill people and in my view governments should be able to see what the tobacco companies are putting on the market before they do it, and regulate them accordingly.”

McAvan also said the world health organisation’s framework convention on tobacco control was “really, really important”.

“It’s one of the first public health international laws and every single European country is signed up to it, plus the EU as a whole,” she added.

“We’ve got legal obligations to implement that law and that law asks us to bring in picture warnings on cigarettes, it asks us to tackle young people and smoking.

“So this is what this new law is doing, it’s helping us implement a legally binding law that we’ve all signed up to freely.”

Chris Bostic Deputy Director for Policy

I wonder if Philip Morris International (PMI) researchers have studied the ‘length of public memory.’ If so, the resulting answer seems to be ‘about 15 years.’ That’s how long it has been since the Tobacco Institute closed its doors, after 40 years of obfuscating the science on tobacco addiction, disease and death. A key aspect of industry strategy to forestall meaningful regulation has always been to question the causal link between tobacco and disease.

PMI has just launched phase two of its sbv IMPROVER project (the title is short for “systems biology verification of industrial methodology for process verification in research”). The theme is “species translation challenge,” and PMI, in collaboration with technoogy giant IBM, will award three US$20,000 grants to scientists who can best poke holes in translating disease lab results in rodents to humans. In one online article very sympathetic to Philip Morris, the reporter states “not every smoker suffers all or any of those health effects, suggesting that a combination of environmental and genetic factors lead to disease.” This years project follows on the “diagnostic signature challenge,” in 2012 which gave a US$50,000 award for showing genetic markers for diseases linked to tobacco.

The main purpose of IMPROVER seems clear – remuddy the waters on the causal link between tobacco and disease. But they actually get much more. By enticing young researchers to compete, PMI pushes back against the trend among major universities to not do business with big tobacco. These researchers are also a natural recruitment pool for the next generation of scientists who are untroubled by the ethics of working with big tobacco. By linking with IBM, working with universities, and comparing the effort to legitimate scientific endeavors such as DREAM, PMI gains legitimacy among the scientific community.

Finally, IMPROVER is a rather brilliant example of corporate social responsibility marketing. Turning the purpose of the scheme on its head, PMI says its “number one objective is to do something about our dangerous products.” How can anyone argue with that? That’s not rhetorical – I invite responses on all the ways we can argue with that.

On a side note, is the name IMPROVER a subtle nod and affront to MPOWER?

Mr. Jacobs was a true pioneer in the public health movement. His vision prompted him to take action against the tobacco epidemic. He was instrumental in founding ASH as the nation’s first organization devoted specifically to the fight against the harms of tobacco in 1968 and served continuously on ASH’s Board of Trustees. He assumed the chairmanship in 1975 and remained in that position until 2010.  Under his leadership, ASH played a leading role in educating the public about the dangers of smoking, in protecting non-smokers from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and in taking the fight for health and against the harm caused by tobacco to a global level through its support of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Following his tenure as Board Chair, Mr. Jacobs served as Chair of ASH’s investment committee and devoted his energy to assuring the future of the organization. His loyalty and fierce dedication of over 45 years to ASH and the tobacco control movement won the admiration of his fellow Trustees and staff at ASH.

“Martin Jacobs was an incredibly bright man who used his intellect not to enrich himself, but to fight for justice and for a world free from the shackles of big tobacco,” said Dr. Alfred Munzer who succeeded Mr. Jacobs as Chair of ASH, “we will miss his wit, his vision and his ability to bring people together.”

“Martin Jacob’s leadership helped ASH become a true catalyst for health, here in the US and all around the world. The vision of this brilliant, passionate but humble man will prevent millions of unnecessary premature deaths,” said Laurent Huber, ASH Executive Director.

In addition to his years of service to the health movement through ASH, Mr. Jacobs retired only recently as a highly regarded software systems designer at the CME Group, formerly New York Mercantile Exchange.

Mr. Jacobs will be sorely missed by his family, friends at ASH, and fellow advocates for health and civil rights.

Our thoughts remain with Mr. Jacob’s family during this difficult time.

Three of Canada’s tobacco giants began their defence Monday against a $27-billion class-action lawsuit in Montreal by calling a witness who said the dangers of smoking are no secret.

Historian and professor Jacques Lacoursière testified tobacco’s health risks have been common knowledge for decades.

He pointed to over 700 references to the hazards of smoking dating back to the 1950s, including TV and radio reports, school manuals, government releases and health professionals.

One of the many examples included a newspaper article that outlined a significant increase in lung cancer risk following the prolonged use of cigarettes.

The proceedings will continue on Tuesday with the plaintiffs’ cross-examination of Lacoursière.

“What these historians miss is all the coverage that came out in the media about how the industry was involved in a conspiracy to hide all that information,” said Damphousse François, the Quebec director of the Non-Smoker’s Rights Association.

“They knew about the health effects of their products, but they didn’t meet the obligation to inform their public about what they knew.”

Landmark class-action lawsuit

The complainants, two groups of individuals representing a total of 1.8 million Quebecers, allege three tobacco companies did everything possible to encourage addiction:

• Imperial Tobacco.
• JTI-MacDonald.
• Rothmans, Benson & Hedges.

One group involves individuals who have become seriously ill from smoking, and members of the other group say they are unable to quit smoking.

They also allege the companies failed to properly warn their customers about the dangers of smoking, underestimated evidence relating to the harmful effects of tobacco, engaged in unscrupulous marketing and destroyed documents.

The class-action lawsuit, which is being touted as the biggest civil case in Canadian history, was first filed years ago.

Lawyers for the tobacco companies attempted to have the entire civil suit thrown out, but the judge rejected the dismissal.

Click here to see this article at its original location>

• Speakers from Hong Kong, New Zealand, Uruguay, Finland and Europe will outline the latest thinking on tobacco and health
• What further steps must we take to cut off tobacco industry marketing?
• How can we tackle the lingering appeal to young people, and put tobacco firmly out of fashion?
• What must we do to create an environment that makes tobacco-free the norm? How can we reflect the addictive nature of tobacco and provide flexible support to those for whom quitting is especially difficult?

This conference will bring policy makers, leaders in public health, academics and advocates of tobacco control from across the UK and Europe together with the people who implement smoking related health and tobacco control strategies at local level. Together we will explore a future free from the harm caused by tobacco.

Click Here to view the 2 day conference program>

In partnership with computational biologists at IBM’s Watson Research Center, Philip Morris’s so-called sbv IMPROVER project creates open challenges to encourage scientists to augment traditional peer reviews of research data. On Monday, Philip Morris launched its Species Translation Challenge, which will award three $20,000 prizes to teams whose results best define how well rodent tests can predict human outcomes.

Similar competitions have emerged in the academic world, but sbv IMPROVER (short for “systems biology verification of industrial methodology for process verification in research” in case you were wondering) is the first that taps the crowd to verify industrial research. An initial challenge last year awarded $50,000 to two Wayne State University researchers who proved best at confirming genetic features that could be considered “diagnostic signatures” for particular diseases.

Why is a cigarette manufacturer sponsoring such competitions? “Our number one objective is to do something about our dangerous products,” says Philip Morris scientific communications director, Hugh Browne. (The company is known for its periodic candor about such matters, even as it continues to dominate the industry.) From heart disease to cancer to emphysema, the potential consequences of smoking are well known. But not every smoker suffers all or any of those health effects, suggesting that a combination of environmental and genetic factors lead to disease.

To understand precisely how smoking and chewing tobacco leads to complex interactions in a user’s biological systems, “Philip Morris is increasing its investments into systems biology,” Browne says. The company is looking at networks of genes, proteins, and biochemical reactions to identify the exact biological mechanisms perturbed by smoking.

But such biological data is notoriously complex to analyze. The profession as yet lacks any standard methodology for verifying results, and traditional peer-review methods have “struggled with the volume and complexity of the data,” according to Philip Morris.

Read the full article at its original location>

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn discussed details of a proposed law that would raise the minimum age for tobacco purchases from 18 to 21. City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, some of Quinn’s fellow City Council members and health advocates were to join her.

Under federal law, no one under 18 can buy tobacco anywhere in the country, but some states and localities have raised it to 19. Texas lawmakers recently tried to increase the minimum age to 21, but the plan stalled.

Public health advocates say a higher minimum age discourages, or at least delays, young people from starting smoking and thereby limits their health risks. But opponents of such measures have said 18-year-olds, legally considered adults, should be able to make their own decisions about whether or not to smoke.

Some communities, including Needham, Mass., have raised the minimum age to 21, but New York would be the biggest city to do so.

“With this legislation, we’ll be targeting the age group at which the overwhelming majority of smokers start,” Quinn said.

Officials say 80 percent of NYC smokers started before age 21, and an estimated 20,000 New York City public high school students now smoke. While it’s already illegal for many of them to buy cigarettes, officials say this measure would play a key role by making it illegal for them to turn to slightly older friends to buy smokes for them. The vast majority of people who get asked to do that favor are between 18 and 21 themselves, city officials say.

“We know that enforcement is never going to be perfect,” but this measure should make it “much harder” for teens to get cigarettes, Farley said.

The Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group Inc., parent company of Philip Morris USA, which makes the top-selling Marlboro brand, had no immediate comment, said spokesman David Sutton. He previously noted that the company supported federal legislation that in 2009 gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products, which includes various retail restrictions.

Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the health commissioners he has appointed, including Farley, New York has rolled out a slate of anti-smoking initiatives.

Bloomberg, a billionaire who has given $600 million of his own money to anti-smoking efforts around the world, began taking on tobacco use in the city shortly after he became mayor in 2002.

Over his years in office, the city — at times with the council’s involvement — helped impose the highest cigarette taxes in the country, barred smoking at parks and on beaches and conducted sometimes graphic advertising campaigns about the hazards of smoking.

Last month, the Bloomberg administration unveiled a proposal to keep cigarettes out of sight in stores until an adult customer asks for a pack, as well as stopping shops from taking cigarette coupons and honoring discounts.

Bloomberg’s administration and public health advocates praise the initiatives as bold moves to help people live better. Adult smoking rates in the city have fallen from 21.5 percent in 2002 to 14.8 percent in 2011, Farley has said.

But the measures also have drawn complaints, at least initially, that they are nannyish and bad for business.

Several of New York City’s smoking regulations have survived court challenges. But a federal appeals court said last year that the city couldn’t force tobacco retailers to display gruesome images of diseased lungs and decaying teeth.

Quinn, a leading Democratic candidate to succeed Bloomberg next year, has often been perceived as an ally of his.

Bloomberg also has pushed a number of other pioneering public-health measures, such as compelling chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus, banning artificial trans fats in restaurants, and attempting to limit the size of sugary drinks. A court struck down the big-beverage rule last month, but the city is appealing and Bloomberg has urged voluntary compliance in the meantime.

While Bloomberg has led the way on many anti-smoking initiatives, this one arose from the City Council, Farley said. City Councilman James Gennaro, who lost his mother to lung cancer after she smoked for decades, has been a particularly strong advocate.

See this article at its original location>

In an interview with /Inside U.S. Trade/, HHS Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs Nils Daulaire said that, historically, the department’s role in formulating trade policy has been more marginal. “HHS’ seat at the table in the trade discussions has largely been occupied by the Food and Drug Administration, because the focus really has been on what does this mean for our regulatory regime when we have food and drugs imported into the U.S.,” he said.

But Daulaire, who joined HHS in 2010, said he did not believe that this type of engagement on a “technical level” was sufficient, especially because trade issues often intersect with health concerns. For that reason, he said he has put more emphasis on substantive engagement “upstream,” meaning while initial trade policies are still in the early phases of being formulated within the Obama administration.

“I came to the conclusion that unless we took a proactive role, and an upstream role, in discussions on trade issues with the USTR, we were going to be left in a position … of either signing off on things or raising technical concerns,” he said. Daulaire said that in the past, HHS had waited to be “the last on the clearance list” in the interagency process, and made clear in the interview that he wanted HHS to play a much larger role on health-related trade issues.

Daulaire heads up the department’s Office of Global Affairs, which is part of the Office of the Secretary. His office is focused on global health policy and has a broader perspective than the FDA, which is also part of HHS.

In the interview, Daulaire acknowledged that the department does not have as much influence when it comes to trade-related matters as other parts of the administration for which trade is the central focus, such as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative or the Commerce Department.

“We are the new kids on the block,” he said. “I don’t think there is any question that we are starting from a fairly low base and having to demonstrate both our value and our thoughtfulness in the process.” At this point, “I would in no way consider us to be full equal players, but we are clearly actors in this dialogue,” and that in and of itself is an important development, Daulaire said.

He made a similar point when participating in an April 5 panel on global health issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “We don’t make the final decisions as to what USTR does; that is for the White House to decide,” he said at that event. “But we want to make sure, and I think it is really for the very first time, that this [health] perspective has been strongly introduced, and our secretary is deeply committed to this.”

At that event, Daulaire also highlighted tobacco and issues related to pharmaceuticals as two issues on which HHS plays a role when helping to develop U.S. trade policy.

*On tobacco, HHS has played a role in developing the “safe harbor” from tobacco-related litigation* that the Obama administration has publicly described, but not yet tabled, in the TPP negotiations. Outside observers say HHS officials were the ones that initially suggested negotiating tobacco-specific provisions in TPP, while USTR was initially hesitant to endorse special provisions for tobacco.

“We consider this to be hugely important from the standpoint of global public health,” Daulaire said, in reference to the draft proposal.

Tobacco control “is unquestionably at the very top of our policy agenda in terms of domestic health, in terms of global health, and in terms of the interface with the trade environment,” especially in light of estimates that one billion people could die of tobacco-related diseases in the twenty-first century, he said.

When asked directly if HHS was responsible for originally proposing tobacco-specific measures in TPP, the HHS official declined to answer.

“All I can tell you is that there had not been this level of engagement and attention previously, and now there is, and we are very glad for all the engagement of many different parties,” he said, adding that the fact that the U.S. draft proposal certainly reflects the increased engagement from HHS on trade policy.

The fact that the Obama administration has still has not tabled the proposal has some anti-smoking advocates nervous, although Daulaire appeared to downplay those fears. “We understand that this is moving forward,” he said. “I can’t go beyond what we can talk about publicly in terms of international trade negotiations, but let me just say that I do not feel discouraged.”

The “safe harbor” proposal would clarify that, notwithstanding other rules contained in the final TPP deal, national health authorities may adopt regulations that impose origin-neutral, science-based restrictions on specific tobacco products or classes in order to safeguard public health. U.S. business and agricultural groups strongly oppose the proposal, saying there is no need to treat tobacco products differently from other products in trade deals.

Anti-smoking advocates, on the other hand, argue that the proposal does not go far enough, and that tobacco products should be completely “carved out” from the TPP talks. In their view, tobacco products should not even be subject to tariff cuts. However, the U.S. has thus far not adopted this complete carveout approach and is currently negotiating tariff phaseouts on tobacco products in TPP.

When asked about his views on a complete carveout, Daulaire signaled his possible support, although he stressed that he had not yet made up his mind on the issue.

“I think that is something that we are talking about at this point,” he said. “I’m not a trade specialist, and the issue of carveouts is pretty complex,” he explained. While his “knee-jerk” reaction would have been to support a complete carveout, his current response is “maybe,” especially in light of his desire to learn more about the “nuance and the consequence” of including such a carveout in a trade deal, he said.

“As we move forward on this, we’ll see where this goes, but it is certainly not something that I would unequivocally say is a bad idea,”

Daulaire explained. “The public health side is very clear and straightforward on this: tobacco is bad and anything we can do to reduce its use and its promotion is good for public health.” At the same time, the administration as a whole must consider a range of issues when formulating policy, he said.

Daulaire declined to respond directly when asked whether special provisions for tobacco should be considered for other new trade agreements, including the planned U.S.-European Union trade talks, but he again signaled his possible support for the idea. “I don’t see anything with TPP that makes it unique in terms of this,” he said.

While each trade negotiation is different, he also noted that TPP is the first time that the U.S. has negotiated an agreement since passing a landmark 2009 tobacco bill.

That bill — the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act — was signed into law in June 2009 and gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products. The U.S. “safe harbor”

draft proposal in TPP is essentially meant to ensure that FDA implementation of its new mandate under the 2009 law would be effectively shielded from legal challenge under a TPP agreement.

“This is also the first time that we’ve gone into a treaty negotiation since the FDA was given tobacco authority, so the ground has changed from earlier negotiations,” Daulaire maintained. U.S. tobacco control advocates are already gearing up to engage with administration officials in the EU context, and are hoping that the administration will look to table special provisions on tobacco in that context as well (/Inside U.S. Trade/, April 12).

*HHS is also playing a role in developing U.S. trade policy when it comes to access to medicines in the TPP*, although here the department’s role was initially more limited, according to Daulaire.

The Obama administration originally unveiled a proposal in this area based on an “access window” concept in the fall of 2011.The basic concept is that pharmaceutical companies would be rewarded with stronger patent protections under a TPP deal if they seek to gain marketing approval swiftly in other TPP countries. The proposal has faced skepticism from U.S. stakeholders and intense resistance from TPP partners (/Inside U.S. Trade/, March 15).

“We were not involved in the early stages of the policy that was put forward as the U.S. negotiating position,” Daulaire explained, largely because “nobody thought to ask us.” While FDA was asked to sign off on an initial version of that proposal, the concern of FDA is more limited to questions like “does this create problems in terms of the application of existing law and regulation,” he explained.

The HHS official stressed that his office is focused on the broader interest of promoting global public health. “Our concern is a broader one … and frankly, it was early in the administration, we hadn’t gotten our ducks lined up yet, and it took us a while to recognize that this was an issue” and that HHS officials should substantively engage, he said.

In light of the resistance from other TPP partners to the original proposal, however, the administration is once again engaged in an interagency process to determine whether or not it should be modified, and HHS is involved in this new round of consultations, Daulaire said.

“We have been welcomed to the table in terms of internal discussions within the administration to see whether a modified U.S. position would be warranted,” he said.

While unable to speak to the precise nature of the deliberations within the administration, Daulaire said that HHS officials “are now very much engaged in this and in these conversations and are looking for ways to make sure that public health is well protected in this process.” He said there is an “open consideration of what we can do to move things forward that is going to work both in terms of the negotiations and in terms of public health.”

This article was originally posted by Inside US Trade on April 22, 2013>

Greg Holland Michigan State University Graduate

CALL TO ACTION: Protect Our Children!

Today we ask each of you to take a moment to support the cause of a 24-year-old Michigan State University graduate and recently naturalized American citizen, Greg Holland, as he petitions the White House (http://wh.gov/Mj4J) to protect children from tobacco smoke while riding in vehicles.

Greg grew up in Alberta, Canada and Detroit, Michigan.  He witnessed tobacco control policies in Canada that discouraged his friends from continuing to smoke while his American friends remained avid smokers and at risk.

Greg remembers when smoking in Alberta was banned in public places in 2007, when all tobacco products were required to be completely out of sight wherever sold in 2008, and most of all, he remembers the government ban on smoking in vehicles with anyone 16 and younger present in most jurisdictions in 2010.  Greg was working in Canada at the time and heard the local radio station announce that the first person had been pulled over and fined for smoking in their vehicle with a six month old infant.

At that point, Greg promised himself that when he became an American citizen, he would work for a similar smoking restriction in the U.S.

Fast forward three years, and that is exactly what Greg is working toward today.

Greg began this petition on the White House’s public call for petitions website and collected the first 150 signatures needed to have a publicly viewable petition by reaching out to people via phone, email, text, tweets, and online sharing.  As of April 19th, he had reached 1,516 signatures.

ASH now asks that you sign your name here (http://wh.gov/Mj4J) to help Greg reach 100,000 signatures – the required number to have the White House review the petition and issue an official response. Please sign it today and share it with your family and friends! The White House only gives each petition a month to garner support, so  this petition expires and goes unheard on May 7th if we don’t reach the 100,000!

5 Simple Steps

Please click on the image for instructions to walk you through the 5 simple steps of creating an account (to ensure everyone only gets 1 vote per petition) and telling the Obama Administration to stand behind Greg in protecting the vulnerable American children who cannot protect themselves from the death and disease that comes with exposure to tobacco smoke.

Feel free to call our office (202-659-4310) with any questions or if you are facing technical issues signing the petition!

American children deserve the same level of protection as Canadian children.  Let’s work together to keep our children healthy!

Sincerely,

ASH Team