January 16, 2016
On January 11, 2016 Gerhard Gmel and colleagues published a very well done longitudinal study of the relationship between e-cigarette and cigarette use in 5128 Swiss male 20 year olds.
They recruited subjects when they were registering for military service (required of all 20 year old males in Switzerland) and followed them up a year later.
The authors measured smoking behavior at the beginning and the end and e-cig use at the end.
(Yes, I know our friends in England will criticize only measuring e-cigarette use at the end. The authors of the paper discuss this issue and we showed that when e-cig use is measured does not affect the results.)
They found:
January 15, 2016
1 of 3 PG-13 movies are smokefree
The Martian, Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer and Mark Huffam (smokefree)
Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg, Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger (smoking)
Brooklyn, Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey (smoking)
2 of 5 R movies are smokefree
Mad Max: Fury Road, Doug Mitchell and George Miller (smokefree)
Room, Ed Guiney (Smokefree)
The Big Short, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner (smoking)
The Revenant, Arnon Milchan, Steve Golin, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mary Parent and Keith Redmon (smoking)
Spotlight, Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust (smoking)
Data from Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!, a project of Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails.
Search the whole movie database here.
January 14, 2016
Here is the press release UCSF sent out about it:
E-Cigarettes, As Used, Aren’t Helping Smokers Quit, Study Shows
New Analysis by UCSF Found “Vapers” Are 28 Percent Less Likely to Stop Smoking
January 13, 2016
January 12, 2016
Wendy Max, Hai-Yen Sung, and I submitted this public comment on HUD’s regulatory impact analysis of its proposed rule making some public housing smokefree. Like the Obama Administration’s FDA, this cost benefit analysis overstated costs and grossly understated the benefits of the old rule (including ignoring most health benefits of quitting and discounting the few health benefits of quitting HUD did consider for “lost pleasure”, although not as much as the FDA did.)
A PDF version of this comment is here. The tracking number is 1k0-8nct-upuf. HUD's rule is here and the regulatory impact anaysis is here.
Comment on Regulatory Impact Analysis for
HUD Proposed Rule
Instituting Smoke-Free Public Housing
Docket No. FR 5597-P-02
Wendy Max, PhD
Professor of Health Economics
Hai-Yen Sung, PhD