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November 28th, 2016:

National view: Lung cancer battle raises concerns about e-cigs, other ‘nicotine-delivery devices’

Nov 28th, 2016
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November has been Lung Cancer Awareness Month and a good time to recall an old saying in the lung cancer community: “If you’ve got lungs, you can get lung cancer.” Lung cancer is everybody’s fight.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/national-view/4168141-national-view-lung-cancer-battle-raises-concerns-about-e-cigs-other

It’s the deadliest cancer in America, accounting for 25 percent of all cancer deaths. Lung cancer is also the leading cause of cancer deaths among women. The National Cancer Institute estimates that 71,600 women will die of lung cancer this year. And you may be surprised to learn that of the women who get lung cancer, approximately 1 in 5 are nonsmokers.

Unfortunately, the false stigma that automatically ties smoking to lung cancer has severely hindered life-saving lung cancer research. In fact, of the $5.3 billion the National Cancer Institute receives every year from the federal government, only 6.5 percent is devoted to lung cancer.

That’s a big part of the reason my husband, U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, is a founder and co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Lung Cancer Caucus. For us, and for millions of other families, lung cancer and the need for more federal support for prevention, treatment and, ultimately, a cure, is personal. Our youngest daughter, Katherine, is battling nonsmoking stage 4 small cell lung cancer. And Rick’s father and aunt both had lung cancer.

Of course, the battle against lung cancer is being waged on many fronts, including efforts to discourage young people from smoking. In that regard, experts increasingly are concerned that hard-won progress against lung cancer could be curbed by the growing popularity of “nicotine-delivery devices,” particularly electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, that turn nicotine into an inhalable liquid vapor, and hookah, which are water pipes used to smoke flavored tobacco.

Simply stated, we don’t really know how dangerous these products are or what chemicals and components users are taking into their bodies. For example, we know little about the safety of propylene glycol, a substance contained in many e-cigarettes. And tests have found that some e-cigarettes contain small amounts of nitrosamines and formaldehyde, both cancer-causing agents.

Thankfully, after years of public review and comment, new Food and Drug Administration regulations are being rolled out to address these concerns. Over the next two years, the FDA will be given more authority to require manufacturers to report the content of their products to the public.

Until then, though, the chemicals — and the potential health effects — will remain largely unknown.

Young people are particularly attracted to the exotic and fruity flavors available in e-cigarettes and specialty tobaccos. In fact, a 2014 Minnesota Department of Health survey of more than 70 schools revealed that 13 percent of high school students and 3 percent of middle school students had used e-cigarettes. Those figures are even higher nationwide as these nicotine-delivery devices have become big business. By some estimates, U.S. sales of e-cigarettes and other more-specialized e-smoking products reached $5.5 billion in 2015.

The new FDA regulations will make it harder for children and teenagers to obtain e-cigarettes, hookah tobacco and cigars. Even now, it’s illegal to sell these products to anyone younger than 18 or in vending machines accessible to minors. The FDA also no longer allows stores to give away samples of new tobacco products.

These measures will help in the battle against lung cancer, but we all need to take our own steps to promote tobacco-free families, homes and communities.

Remember, if you’ve got lungs, you can get lung cancer. We’ve all got lungs, so we all have a stake in this fight.

Mary Nolan of Crosby, Minn., is a member of the Congressional Families Cancer Prevention Program of the Prevent Cancer Foundation and is the wife of U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan. She wrote this for the News Tribune

FTC Releases 2014 Cigarette and Smokeless Tobacco Sales and Marketing Expenditures Reports

Nov 28th, 2016
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http://military-technologies.net/2016/11/28/ftc-releases-2014-cigarette-and-smokeless-tobacco-sales-and-marketing-expenditures-reports/

The number of cigarettes sold by the largest cigarette companies in the United States to wholesalers and retailers in the U.S. declined from 256.7 billion in 2013 to 253.8 billion in 2014, according to the most recent Federal Trade Commission Cigarette Report.

The amount spent on cigarette advertising and promotion decreased from $8.95 billion in 2013 to $8.49 billion in 2014, due mainly to a decrease in spending on price discounts (discounts paid to cigarette retailers or wholesalers in order to reduce the price of cigarettes to consumers).

Spending on price discounts decreased from $7.64 billion in 2013 to $6.76 billion in 2014. The price discount categories (retail and wholesale) were the two largest expenditure categories in 2014, accounting for 79.7 percent of industry spending in 2014. For the first time, this year’s report breaks out the retail ($5.56 billion) from wholesale ($1.20 billion) price discounts. Price discounts had been the single largest expenditure category every year since 2002.

According to the 2014 Smokeless Tobacco Report, smokeless tobacco sales declined slightly from 128.0 million pounds in 2013 to 127.8 million pounds in 2014. The revenue from those sales increased, however, from $3.26 billion in 2013 to $3.42 billion in 2014.

Spending on advertising and promotion by the major manufacturers of smokeless tobacco products in the U.S., which had increased from $435.9 million in 2012 to $503.2 million in 2013, further increased to $600.8 million in 2014. As with cigarettes, price discounts made up the two largest spending categories, totaling $357.2 million – or 59.4 percent of all spending in 2014, up from the $287.7 million spent in 2013. As with the cigarette report, this year’s smokeless tobacco report breaks down price discounts provided to retailers ($257.3 million) and to wholesalers ($99.8 million).

The Commission has issued the Cigarette Report periodically since 1967 and the Smokeless Tobacco Report periodically since 1987.

The Commission vote to issue the reports was 3-0. (FTC File No. P114508, the staff contact is Michael Ostheimer, 202-326-2699)

COP7 decisions: an overview

Nov 28th, 2016
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http://www.fctc.org/fca-news/opinion-pieces/183-news/1499-cop7-decisions-an-overview

FCA identified three interlinked implementation-related priorities for COP7 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC):

  • Follow-up on the 30-percent prevalence reduction target agreed at COP6;
  • Establishment of an implementation review mechanism (IRM: i.e. a system to review Parties’ reports);
  • Action on fundraising for national-level implementation, building on the work of the sustainable measures working group.

At the meeting there was action on all three, though with a somewhat surprising twist with respect to IRM. Rather than immediately establishing an implementation review committee, Parties instead set up a working group to draft a “strategic framework” for the FCTC – which should deal with a range of implementation issues, including a possible IRM. The working group will also review and prioritize Parties’ needs for implementation assistance and will reflect them in the strategic framework.

It is quite common for treaty bodies to draw up strategic plans, and these have proven to be helpful both to keep a tight focus on priority issues and to raise funds.

30-percent target

On the 30-percent target, Parties requested that the Secretariat and WHO hold a technical consultation between COP7 and COP8 to identify necessary actions that the COP could take to ensure that the global voluntary target is achieved. The decision also requests that the Secretariat collect information regarding national targets.

There were other notable debates at COP7. On the Illicit Trade Protocol, unlike during previous COP sessions, there was widespread recognition that people shouldn’t wait until the ITP is in force before thinking about some of the implementation issues that are likely to arise.

On e-cigarettes, Parties spent a considerable amount of time re-hashing the issue, and butted heads for quite a while on the exact wording of a decision. The COP7 decision is quite similar to what was decided at COP6.

Finally, there were a host of other decisions. (COP7 had the longest list of official documents of any COP session to date.) These included:

Art 5.3 Knowledge Hub

  • On Article 5.3, a decision to establish a Knowledge Hub, and to ask the Secretariat to continue promoting measures to address tobacco industry interference among UN agencies.
  • On Article 9/10, additions to the existing guidelines were adopted. These included provisions to regulate design features that increase attractiveness (e.g. slims), and disclosure to governments of the contents of tobacco products.
  • Continuing work on Article 17&18, including a request to WHO to develop guidelines for surveillance, prevention and early diagnosis of occupational harms and risks specific to tobacco cultivation and manufacture.
  • Endorsement of a toolkit on Article 19 developed by an expert group, as well as some follow-up by the Secretariat.
  • On the FCTC impact assessment submitted to COP7, the COP welcomed the findings but did not commit to repeating the exercise immediately, instead encouraging Parties to consider evaluating on a regular basis the impact of the Convention at country level.

Cross-border advertising

  • On cross-border advertising, establishment of a new expert group to provide recommendations on operationalizing the implementation of Article 13 and its Guidelines on cross-border advertising and TAPS in entertainment media.
  • On Waterpipe: a request for a report to COP8 including a situation analysis and an overview of challenges and recommendations for improving the prevention and control of water pipe tobacco use.
  • On Gender: the Secretariat and WHO were requested to prepare a paper for COP8 on opportunities and challenges in implementing gender-specific tobacco control policies.
  • On trade and investment agreements, the COP called on Parties to increase coordination and cooperation between health and trade/investment departments, including in the context of negotiations of trade and investment agreements. It also requested a report for COP8 on a number of topics, including on practices in promoting and safeguarding public health measures under trade and investment agreements.
  • Moving to institutional matters, COP7 decided the following:

‘Voluntary’ no more

  • Parties’ mandatory payments to the FCTC budget will now be called Assessed Contributions (not Voluntary Assessed Contributions). The COP also agreed on a scheme of penalties should a Party fail to provide these payments.
  • The Convention Secretariat should consider holding a financing dialogue to raise extra-budgetary funding for the FCTC budget and to alert funders to the implementation needs of Parties. It was also agreed that when raising funds from stakeholders other than Parties, the Secretariat should follow the practices agreed on in WHO’s Framework for Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA).
  • The Secretariat was tasked to undertake a review of accreditation of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) with the status of observer to the Conference of the Parties, as proposed by the COP7 report. At COP8, results of this review will be discussed and further decisions, such as whether this review should take place on a regular basis or whether observer status may be discontinued for some IGOs, might be taken.

New Observers

  • The observer status of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was extended for most of the current observers. In addition, the following three NGOs were granted an observer status: American Cancer Society, Inter-American Heart Foundation, Vision mondiale de la santé / World Vision Health. A number of organizations were denied observer status per the recommendation of the Bureau.
  • The Secretariat was encouraged to apply for observer status to a number of UN bodies and other relevant entities, including UNDP, World Bank, ILO, FAO, and WTO. The Secretariat’s participation at governing body meetings of these organizations could raise the profile of the treaty and its provisions, including the Article 5.3 principles.
  • Synergies between the WHO and FCTC governing bodies – the Conference of the Parties (COP) and the World Health Assembly (WHA) – were strengthened by agreeing that reports on decisions from COP will be presented to WHA and vice versa.

WHO and FCTC agreement

  • The Bureau was requested to oversee and guide the preparation of the draft hosting terms between the Convention Secretariat and WHO. Once finalized, the hosting agreement should clarify the exact WHO contributions to support the work of the Convention Secretariat.
  • A dedicated methodology to review performance of the Head of the Secretariat was agreed upon. The review of performance for the current Head is set to take place in 2017, as her mandate expires in mid-2018.
  • The COP took no decision on transparency of Party delegations (i.e. whether Party delegates should make a declaration on any links with the tobacco industry, and what possible follow-up steps should take place). This point will be reviewed again at COP8.

Finally, on the issue of the FCTC budget, it was decided that the budget for 2018-2019 covered by Parties’ mandatory payments will be lowered by nearly US$300,000 compared to the budget for the current biennium. As a result, virtually all activities included in the workplan for 2018-2019 will need to be funded by extra-budgetary contributions.

Please note that the above summary is not an exhaustive list of all the decisions taken at COP7, and there may be surprises in the final version of the decisions when they are published (in part because many decisions were not finalized till very late in the session.)

– See more at: http://www.fctc.org/fca-news/opinion-pieces/183-news/1499-cop7-decisions-an-overview#sthash.giEvrPnq.dpuf