September 6, 2018
The tobacco companies have been going around the state telling people that San Francisco is not enforcing its comprehensive ban on the prohibition on the sale of flavored tobacco products.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health has proven them wrong. The Department just updated its website with details on the implementation plan, including, sending a mailer (below) to every retailer in the City telling them that the law is in effect and that they should stop ordering flavored products.
Here is the schedule that the City has announced:
July 20, 2018 Ban effective date
Sep 2018 Outreach and Education On-Site-Visits Begin
Oct 2018 Compliance Inspections Begin
Jan 2019 Enforcement Begins After Rules and Regulations are Adopted.
The Department is beginning with outreach to the tobacco retailers educating them on the flavored tobacco products ban, collecting questions they may have concerning flavored tobacco products and answering them.
August 31, 2018
August 30, 2018
Karma KcKelvey and colleagues’ paper “IQOS labelling will mislead consumers” presents the results of a close analysis of the information on consumer perceptions of IQOS that PMI presents in its modified risk tobacco product (MRTP) application to the FDA to market IQOS as a reduced risk and reduced exposure product. They conclude that PMI’s studies did not provide sufficient evidence that IQOS users will completely switch from cigarettes to IOQS (the assumed behavior that the whole application hinges on) or that consumers will understand PMI’s proposed claims regarding exposure, harm and “switching completely.” They go on to conclude that PMI’s MRTP application does not satisfy FDA requirements that consumers will not be misled by PMI’s proposed marketing; therefore, HTP should not be allowed to be marketed with reduced risk claims.
August 30, 2018
Tobacco Control just published “IQOS: examination of Philip Morris International’s claim of reduced exposure” and “Assessment of industry data on pulmonary and immunosuppressive effects of IQOS” that provide insights based on the information PMI provided to FDA as part of its Modified Risk Tobacco Product IQOS.
PMI is making a big deal about the fact that IQOS delivers lower levels of many toxins than conventional cigarettes. They ignore the fact that their own data show higher levels – sometimes much higher levels – of others.
Other information shows that IQOS generates significant pulmonary harm, including adverse effects on the immune system in the lung that compromise lungs’ ability to resist infection. These effects do not appear to significantly different from conventional cigarettes.
These results are consistent with the other papers that concluded that the adverse health effects of IQOS are not all that different from cigarettes.
August 24, 2018
Tobacco Control just published two peer reviewed papers based on close reads of the raw data buried in Philip Morris International's application to FDA to sell IQOS as a reduced risk product.
As the title " PMI’s own in vivo clinical data on biomarkers of potential harm in Americans show that IQOS is not detectably different from conventional cigarettes" indicates, PMI's own data shows that the measures of health impact that IQOS has are not statistically different from conventional cigarettes. (I wrote a piece on The Conversation summarizing these results in simple English a few months ago.)