December 30, 2015
My UCSF colleagues and I just published “Impairment of Endothelial Function by Little Cigar Secondhand Smoke” in Tobacco Regulatory Science that showed that secondhand smoke from little cigars had the same kind of large and immediate adverse effects on the function of blood vessels that cigarette secondhand smoke does.
Here is the abstract:
Objectives: Little cigars and cigarillos are gaining in popularity as cigarette use wanes, mainly due to relaxed regulatory standards that make them cheaper, easier to buy individually, and available in a variety of flavors not allowed in cigarettes. To address whether they should be regulated as strictly as cigarettes, we investigated whether little cigar secondhand smoke (SHS) decreases vascular endothelial function like that of cigarettes.
Methods: We exposed rats to SHS from little cigars, cigarettes, or chamber air, for 10 minutes and measured the resulting acute impairment of arterial flow-mediated dilation (FMD).
December 28, 2015
There is an important indication that the Government of India’s policies designed to get smoking out of movies are having an impact: On December 25, 2015, the Times of India reported that “Bollywood offers to make anti-tobacco short films to go with their movies.”
This means
(1) Bollywood recognizes that the policy is not going away
(2) They are highly motivated to keep the smoking in their movies, perhaps to keep the tobacco companies happy.
(3) We don’t want to turn creation of anti-tobacco messaging to people with a history of working with tobacco
For people who have not been following developments in India, the Government requires Ministry of Health-produced anti-smoking ads before and during the intermission for all films that include smoking. And, any time that tobacco use appears on screen, an anti-smoking (text) message has to appear on the screen at the same time.
December 27, 2015
We just submitted the following public comment to the FTC regarding its proposal to monitor e-cigarette marketing. This is not only valualbe in its own right, but would also provide useful information to the FDA should the Obama Administration actually let the FDA do anything about e-cigarettes. The comment is also available as a PDF here. The FTC tracking number is 00032.
Detailed information and reports on electronic cigarette marketing and sales is essential for understanding the skyrocketing popularity and use of various electronic cigarette products among youth and young adults
FTC File No. P144504
Lauren K. Lempert, JD MPH
Benjamin W. Chaffee, DDS PhD
Lucy Popova, PhD
Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD
Margarete C. Kulik, PhD
Stanton A. Glantz, PhD
UCSF Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
University of California, San Francisco
FTC proposal is at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/FTC/InitiativeDocFiles/750/Notice.pdf
December 23, 2015
December 11, 2015
Lucy Popova and I, together with colleagues here at UCSF and at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and University of California, Davis Medical Center just published "Testing antismoking messages for Air Force trainees" in Tobacco Control.
We tested a vartiety of existing anto-smoking ads on Air Force recruits and found that ads featuring negative effects of tobacco on health and sexual performance coupled with revealing tobacco industry manipulations had the most consistent pattern of effects on perceived harm and intentions. This means that anti-smoking advertisements produced for the general public might also be effective with a young adult military population and be a cost-effective tool to educate young adults in the military.
Here is the abstract:
Introduction Young adults in the military are aggressively targeted by tobacco companies and are at high risk of tobacco use. Existing antismoking advertisements developed for the general population might be effective in educating young adults in the military. This study evaluated the effects of different themes of existing antismoking advertisements on perceived harm and intentions to use cigarettes and other tobacco products among Air Force trainees.