September 12, 2013
We just published Effect of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and Voluntary Industry Health Warning Labels on Passageof Mandated Cigarette Warning Labels From 1965 to 2012: Transition Probability and Event History Analyses in American Journal of Public Health.
This paper examines the pattern of enactment and strengthening of health warning labels on cigarette packages since 1965, when they were first introduced in the United States. We found that ratification of the FCTC was associated with a significantly increase in the likelihood that a country would enact or strengthen its warning labels.
We also found that countries that entered into voluntary agreements with the tobacco companies were significantly slowed in their implementation of warning labels.
This is the first quantitative evidence that the FCTC is working to speed the diffusion of tobacco control policies.
Here is the abstract of the paper:
Objectives.We quantified the pattern and passage rate of cigarette package health warning labels (HWLs), including the effect of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and HWLs voluntarily implemented by tobacco companies.
September 11, 2013
You can listen to the segment in the September 11, 2013 installment of On Point at http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/09/11/e-cigarettes.
There was even a caller who tried to use ecigs to quit and failed.
September 9, 2013
On the heels of withdrawing its tepid attempt to keep the Trans Pacific Partnership from becoming a powerful tool for Big Tobacco to block tobacco control policies in the US and countries participating in the TPP negotiations, the FDA has ignored the health community and granted the tobacco companies the full 60 day extension it asked for to comment on its long-delayed report on menthol.
For all Obama's talk about "respecting international standards" in his so-far unsuccessful effort to mobilize support to bomb Syria, he seems oblivious to the strong international consensus, as manifest in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, that cigarettes and other tobacco products are chemical weapons that are killing millions every year.
September 9, 2013
I was just on a conference call with the US Trade Representative as part of their effort for "public engagement."
After sitting on hold for about 10 minutes, we were treated to a statement from the US Trade Representative Ambassdor Froman, about how important they thought public engagement was and congratulating their staff for the great job they were doing
They then had about 10 or 15 minutes for a few questions. (I pushed the button to get in the que almost immediately after they invited people to do so and never got called on.)
The last person they did call on was Greg Haifley from American Cancer Society, who asked a pointed question about whether or not the US would support Malaysia's carve out for tobacco. Needless to say Froman gave him a run around about "balancing" issues. Needless to say there was no time for a followup question from Greg or anyone else.
September 8, 2013
Christopher Bullen and colleagues from the University of Auckland just published a nicely done randomized clinical trial in Lancet that compared ecigs, the nicotine patch and nicotine-free ecigs as cessation aids. They found no difference in 6 month quit rates among the three groups.
Hopefully this study will get ecig promoters to stop claiming that ecigs are better than NRT for quitting.
The trial also encouraged people to use the local Quit line. Few people did and at about the same rates for all three groups.
These results are about what I would have expected, since ecigs are a way to deliver nicotine just as NRT. Because NRT, however, does so with much lower levels of accompanying toxins than ecigs deliver, clinicians should refrain from recommeding ecigs for quitting.