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Analysis of factors associated with disease outcomes in hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus disease

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SNOWPLUS, the Maker of China’s E-cigarette Standard

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/snowplus-maker-china-e-cigarette-070000958.html

China had just celebrated its 70th Founding Anniversary, and is vigorously developing its diversified economy, one of which is e-cigarette, a special industry being taken more and more seriously.

As an emerging alternative to traditional tobacco, the new tobacco products created a global sales amounted to USD $24.7 billion in 2018, and the figure is expected to be up to USD $45 billion in 2024. More than 95% of all the world’s e-cigarettes are made in China, and over 90% are exported from here.

In China where e-cigarette is invented, nearly 700 independent e-cig brands are working on winning over the 300 million Chinese smokers in many ways. “Quality is above all other marketing techniques,” said a senior manager of SNOWPLUS – the leading producer in China’s e-cig industry. Every single SNOWPLUS product will be given an ultimate toxicity test to verify its safety by authoritative inspection agencies before it is put onto the market – this is second to none in China.

Besides, SNOWPLUS is vigorously pushing on the standardization of e-cigarette industry in China. On August 29, 2019, China’s first e-cigarette bluebook was presented by Tsinghua University’s Public Health and Technical Supervision Research Group with the title of Public Health and Technical Supervision Studies: Report on the Supervision of the E-Cigarette Industry. The ownership of the report was finally granted to SNOWPLUS by the research group of Tsinghua University.

“We appreciate SNOWPLUS’s contributions, as its ultimate goal is to set up the industrial standards and to make China’s e-cigarettes go much further and more stably.” said Yao Jide, the executive vice president of the Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee. SNOWPLUS is expected to be the vice-chairman unit of this committee at the end of this year.

The e-cigarette incident in the USA once insinuated doubts of the public about the new product. On September 28, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed the truth on its official website that, “the latest findings from the investigation into lung injuries caused by vaping, suggest that THC products played a role in the outbreak. Most of the people (77%) were found using THC-containing products, or both THC-containing products and nicotine-containing products.”

“That is exactly the reason why we should strive to push forward the introduction of industrial and national standards,” said the above senior manager of SNOWPLUS, “our ultimate goal is to improve the health of 1 billion smoking population worldwide.”

Driver held over HK$3.6m illicit cigarettes

Customs said today they have seized about 1.3 million illicit cigarettes, worth about HK$3.6 million, at the Shenzhen Bay Control Point yesterday and arrested a 52-year-old male driver.

Officers intercepted an incoming truck declared as carrying assorted goods at the control point last night. After inspection, they found the batch of illicit cigarettes inside 79 cartons mix-loaded with other goods on the truck.

Development of China’s Public Health as an Essential Element of Human Rights

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Change of crop bears fruit

For local farmers in Qujing, money does grow on trees since the local government enticed the Joyvio Group to invest in plantations to grow a superfood. Wang Hao, Yang Feiyue and Li Yingqing report in Qujing, Yunnan.

http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2017-09/26/content_32492426.htm

Yingqing Xu Huayuan is using secateurs to trim blueberry trees in a vast plantation in Yunnan province.

“You can try one of the blueberries that have turned dark blue on the trees. They are sweet,” says the 32-year-old.

Xu is a contract worker on a blueberry plantation in the Qilin district of Qujing city, which is owned by Joyvio Group, the strategic investment arm for food and agribusiness of Legend Holdings.

He has been working at the plantation, which covers 73 hectares, for a year, caring for its 240,000 blueberry trees along with seven others.

His work includes keeping a record of the development of each blueberry tree in the area of the farm he is responsible for, monitoring the changes in temperature and water content on a daily basis throughout the year.

“My life is much easier and more stable now than it used to be,” says Xu, who used to grow tobacco on his 0.7 hectare of land. “I had to dig into my own pockets to buy pesticide and fertilizer, do all the heavy lifting during the harvest, and find buyers,” he says.

His family could make up to 30,000 yuan ($4,500) if there was a good harvest, but would lose it all when the weather wreaked havoc.

The city produces among the best tobacco nationwide, and its output accounts for approximately 9 percent of the total nationwide.

“Tobacco is still a pillar industry. But we are trying to make other sectors, like organic farming, vacation and sport tourism, take up a larger proportion, so that the industrial mix would be healthier, too. Blueberries are our new hope,” says Dong Baotong, the mayor of Qujing.

Xiamen’s new public orders to take effect Oct. 1st, 2017

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Chinese customs seize 600 tonnes e-cigarette oil

Customs in southern China recently seized 600 tonnes of smuggled electronic cigarette oil, with a total value of 300 million yuan (about 44 million U.S. dollars).

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-08/21/c_136543768.htm

Over 320 police raided four groups who were suspected of smuggling the oil from the United States, according to Zhou Bin, head of Gongbei Customs Office, which administers Zhuhai and Zhongshan cities in Guangdong Province.

The four companies were based in Shenzhen and Xiamen and supplied the majority of the e-cigarette oil in the Chinese market, according to Zhou.

In recent years, sales of electronic cigarettes have grown by more than 300 percent annually, but supervision of the industry is still weak, Zhou said.

Most of the oil sold in China is imported, he said.

Twenty people have been placed under criminal detention following the raid, and further investigation is underway.

WHO China launches smoke-free campaign targeting youth

The World Health Organization (WHO) started a “smoke-free generation” media campaign in Beijing Thursday targeting young Chinese.

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2017-06/03/content_40957899.htm

China is in the grip of a national tobacco epidemic, and children are most susceptible with cigarettes portrayed as fashionable and alluring in popular culture, said Bernhard Schwartlander, WHO Representative in China at the launch event.

According to WHO, over half of Chinese adult men smoke, two thirds of whom started as young adults. By 2014, 72.9 percent Chinese students had been exposed to secondhand smoke.

“There is nothing cool about smoking, but there is something empowering about choosing to live a healthy, smoke-free life,” said Schwartlander.

Since China ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, the country has made a number of tobacco control efforts, including banning tobacco advertisements, increasing tobacco taxes and putting forward regional smoking bans.

As of 2016, 18 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, had implemented regional smoking bans.

China has set a target to reduce the smoking rate among people aged 15 and older to 20 percent by 2030 from the current 27.7 percent, according to the “Healthy China 2030″ blueprint issued by the central authorities last October.

WHO launches smoke-free celebrity campaign targeting youth

World No Tobacco Day, which took place on May 31 this year, was themed “Tobacco – a threat to development.”

http://www.ecns.cn/2017/06-02/259994.shtml

The Chinese arm of the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a “smoke-free next generation” media campaign on June 1, inviting Chinese celebrities to encourage youngsters not to smoke. Four young Chinese celebrities, actor Wang Jia, actress Guan Xiaotong, Yiyang Qianxi of the music group TFBoys, and visual artist Chen Man, were invited to join the campaign.

“Tobacco is a threat to any person. It brings suffering, disease, death, and impoverishes families. I had never thought about smoking before, and after the event I am more determined not to smoke,” Yiyang Qianxi, member of the TFBoys, said.

“Smoking is harmful not only for the smokers, but also for nonsmokers through passive smoking,” Guan Xiaotong added.

Tobacco control is a global health issue, and reminding young people of the danger of smoking plays an important role in curbing the tobacco epidemic.

According to WHO, up to 10 billion cigarettes per day are smoked, and more than seven million deaths are linked to tobacco use every year. WHO predicts that the number of deaths caused by tobacco might grow to more than eight million a year by 2030, intensive action is not taken.

In fact, more than half of adult men are smokers in China, two-thirds of whom started smoking as young adults.

“There is absolute nothing cool or fashionable about developing lung cancer, oral cancer and yellow teeth. In other words, there’s nothing cool about smoking, But, there is something empowering about choosing to live a healthy, smoke-free life,” said Dr. Bernhard Schwartländer, the WHO representative in China.

Tobacco endangers the lives of millions of people around the world. It threatens our future and the development of economies and the environment. Tobacco harms our health and destroys our efforts to build a healthier, more prosperous and peaceful world.

Please say no to tobacco.

Study: China Struggles to Kick World-Leading Cigarette Habit

Most smokers in China, the world’s largest tobacco consumer, have no intention of kicking the habit and remain unaware of some of its most damaging health effects, Chinese health officials and outside researchers said Wednesday.

http://www.voanews.com/a/china-smoking/3879050.html

An estimated 316 million people smoke in China, almost a quarter of the population, and concerns are growing about the long-term effects on public health and the economy.

The vast majority of smokers are men, of whom 59 percent told surveyors that they have no plans to quit, according to a decade-long study by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Canadian researchers with the International Tobacco Control project.

Such numbers have prompted efforts to restrict the formerly ubiquitous practice. Major cities including Beijing and Shanghai having recently moved to ban public smoking, with Shanghai’s prohibition going into effect in March. In 2015, the central government approved a modest nationwide cigarette tax increase.

But Chinese and international health officials argue that more is needed, including a nationwide public smoking ban, higher cigarette taxes and more aggressive health warnings. Such actions are “critically important,” Yuan Jiang, director of tobacco control for the Chinese Center for Disease Control, said in a statement released with Wednesday’s study.

A public smoking ban appeared imminent last year. The government health ministry said in December that it would happen by the end of 2016, but that has yet to materialize.

“They have to figure out what’s important as a health policy,” said Geoffrey Fong of Canada’s University of Waterloo, one of the authors of Wednesday’s study. “Every third man that you pass on the street in China will die of cigarettes. …When you have cheap cigarettes, people will smoke them.”

In line with global trends, smoking rates among Chinese have fallen slowly over the past 25 years, by about 1 percent annually among men and 2.6 percent among women, according to a separate study published in April in the medical journal The Lancet.

Yet because of China’s population growth — 1.37 billion people at last count — the actual number of smokers has continued to increase. Rising prosperity means cigarettes have become more affordable, while low taxes keep the cost of some brands at less than $1 a pack.

Sixty percent of Chinese smokers were unaware that cigarettes can lead to strokes and almost 40 percent weren’t aware that smoking causes heart disease, according to the study, which was released on World No Tobacco Day, when the World Health Organization and others highlight health risks associated with tobacco use.

Judith Mackay, an anti-tobacco advocate based in Hong Kong, said China has made strides with the public smoking bans in some cities and a similar ban covering schools and universities, but that’s not enough.

“This is the first time there has been a report looking at the overall picture of where China stands,” said Mackay, senior adviser at Vital Strategies, a global health organization. “The reality is, it’s falling behind.”

Mackay blamed behind the scenes lobbying by China’s state-owned tobacco monopoly for impeding efforts to toughen tobacco policies. The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Government agencies and research institutes in China, Canada and the United States funded the study.