May 10, 2016
Health Care Costs Drop Quickly After Smokers Quit
UCSF Study Estimates How Much Smoking Reductions Can Save Each State
By Elizabeth Fernandez on May 10, 2016
When smoking drops, health care costs plummet the next year. A new national analysis by UC San Francisco of health care expenditures associated with smoking estimates that a 10 percent decline in smoking in the U.S. would be followed a year later by an estimated $63 billion reduction in total national health care costs.
The study examined the year-to-year relationship between changes in smoking and changes in medical costs for the entire country, taking into account differences between states as well as historical trends in smoking behavior, economic conditions, demographics, and health care expenditures.
The study provides strong evidence that reducing the prevalence of smoking and cigarette consumption per smoker is followed rapidly by lower health care expenditures – and the savings continue to grow in the short run.
May 6, 2016
This excellent discussion features a kumbaya moment between Greg Conley and Stan Glantz. Listen to it at http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201605060900
May 5, 2016
Lauren Lempert and I just published "Implications of tobacco industry research on packaging colors for designing health warning labels" in Nicotine and Tobacco Research. This paper uses previously secret tobacco industry documents to learn how to make better warning labels.
Here is the abstract:
Introduction: Health warning labels are an important way to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco products. Tobacco companies conducted research to understand how pack colors affect consumers’ perceptions of the products and make packages and their labeling more visually prominent.
Methods: We analyzed previously secret tobacco industry documents concerning the tobacco industry’s internal research on how cigarette package colors and design influence the visual prominence of packages and consumers’ perceptions of the harmfulness of the products.
May 5, 2016
The FDA issued its “deeming rule” extending jurisdiction to e-cigarettes, all cigars, hookah, and other products (including products that have not been created). The rule itself is 499 pages long, not counting related “guidance” documents that detail implementation.
The best evidence that this rule represents a step (albeit small) forward is the fact that Mike Siegel has described it as “a disaster for public health.”
Based on my very fast (and likely incomplete) reading of the rule, I think Siegel’s summary of the provisions (but not the public health impact) is accurate as far as it goes. Here is what he wrote (less his commentary).
1. Pre-Market Tobacco Applications
May 4, 2016
On Saturday, 9 April 2016, the eve of the MTV Movie Awards, kids from Canada and the US joined forces to call for smokefree youth-rated movies (press release).
Jointly organized by the Ontario Coalition for Smoke-Free Movies and Reality Check of New York, 130 young people dressed in red and blue hit the streets around Toronto City Hall to hand out infographics on the dangers of on-screen smoking.
The recent Ontario Tobacco Research Unit (OTRU) report Youth exposure to tobacco in movies in Ontario, Canada: 2004-14 found that the large majority (86 per cent) of movies with smoking released in Ontario were rated for children and teens.
OTRU estimates that at least 185,000 children and teens aged 0-17 living in Ontario today will be recruited to cigarette smoking by their exposure to smoking on screen. The report also projects that at least 59,000 of those smokers will die prematurely from smoking-related disease.