August 11, 2018
Lauren Lempert and I just sent this letter to FDA suggesting the questions that FDA and its Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee should consider when assessing RJR's Modified Risk Tobacco Product application for Camel Snus. A PDF of the letter is available here.
August 11, 2018
Mr. Mitchell Zeller, Director
Dr. Matthew R. Holman, Director, Office of Science
August 10, 2018
Pam Ling and I just published “Tobacco company strategies to identify and promote the benefits of nicotine” in Tobacco Control. In this paper, we used previously secret tobacco industry documents to show how the tobacco companies have worked for decades to promote the myth than nicotine does not have any adverse effects and, in fact, has benefits. We are hearing echoes of these efforts in the current discussions about nicotine, with much of this thinking implicit in the FDA’s nicotine policy.
Hopefully, as people and policymakers develop more sophisticated understanding of the industry’s role in promoting these ideas, they will move beyond this obsolete thinking.
Here is the abstract:
Background In response to a changing regulatory and consumer landscape, tobacco companies developed new strategies to promote cigarettes and smoking. We examined one of these strategies: to fund and conduct scientific research related to potential benefits of nicotine, and to use their findings to promote nicotine.
August 1, 2018
Living in Smoke-Free Homes—Which Is Far More Common Among Higher-Income People—Improves the Odds of Quitting
By Laura Kurtzman on July 27, 2018
July 30, 2018
July 26, 2018
Catherine Egbe, Stella Bialous, and I just published “Role of stakeholders in Nigeria’s tobacco control journey after the FCTC: lessons for tobacco control advocacy in low-income and middle-income countries” in Tobacco Control.
The paper shows that Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) ratification has not stopped the tobacco industry from using its well-established tactics to stall tobacco control policy in Nigeria. We used the Policy Dystopia Model and WHO categories of tobacco industry interference provide a helpful framework for analysing and understanding the activities of the tobacco industry and of tobacco control advocates in Nigeria. Despite strong resistance from the tobacco companies, tobacco control advocates were able to make some progress, particularly because they were assisted with international technical support and funding. These lessons from Nigeria are transferable and adaptable for other low-income and middle-income countries and African countries.
This is our third paper on the evolving history of tobacco control policymaking in Nigeria and, to get the most out of this new paper, it should be read in the context of the two earlier papers, which provide the historical foundation for this one: