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February 19th, 2008:

EU Panel Says Oral Tobacco Is Addictive, Hazardous

(Update2) – By Thomas Mulier

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) — Swedish-style snuff hasn’t been proven to help people quit smoking, a European Union panel said, dealing a blow to tobacco companies that lobbied for lifting a ban on the product.

Smokeless tobacco is addictive and hazardous to health, the committee said in a report on its Web site. Evidence that the snuff, known as snus, may help Swedish smokers stop isn’t sufficient to lift an EU ban because it’s “not possible to extrapolate the patterns of tobacco use” to other countries, the committee said.

Snus is a moist form of snuff that is placed between the upper lip and gums rather than sniffed. The tobacco industry, led by British American Tobacco Plc and Swedish Match AB, has been lobbying the EU to lift the ban, which applies to all members of the bloc except Sweden. Cigarette makers have been moving into smokeless tobacco products, trying to create a new market as public smoking restrictions spread through the U.S. and Europe.

“This conclusion implies that there will be no impetus for a change in policy for a lifting of the ban,” wrote David Hayes, an analyst at Lehman Brothers who has an “overweight” rating on Swedish Match.

The EU banned snus for health reasons before Sweden joined. The country negotiated an exception to the rule when it became a member, becoming the only EU nation where the product can be sold legally.

Shares Fall

Swedish Match shares fell 4 kronor, or 2.8 percent, to 138 kronor in Stockholm, where the company is based. That gives the company a market value of about 36.8 billion kronor ($5.84 billion). London-based BAT declined 19 pence to 1,825 pence in London.

Studies show that all smokeless tobacco products contain carcinogens and may cause cancer of the pancreas, the committee said. Research indicates some kinds of oral tobacco are associated with a “high” risk for mouth cancer, though it hasn’t been proven for snus, the panel added. Smokeless tobacco also may increase the risk of death after a heart attack, the committee said.

Snus is at least 50 percent less likely to lead to heart disease than cigarettes, and possibly 100 percent less likely to lead to lung cancer, the committee said.

“Politicians must now decide on whether it is reasonable to continue to deny European smokers access to a dramatically less hazardous alternative to cigarettes,” Lars Rutqvist, vice president for scientific affairs at Swedish Match, said in a statement. “This is probably only the first step in a long political process.”

Benefits, Risk

The benefits of lifting a ban would be offset by the risk that consumers who might never have smoked would start using snus, or that consumers who quit smoking for the product would continue using it indefinitely, the panel said.

Some evidence from the U.S. suggests that smokeless tobacco use may lead to cigarette smoking, while Swedish data don’t support this conclusion, the report said. Cultural differences “suggest caution in translating findings across countries” and there are no randomized trials on smokeless tobacco as a cigarette substitute.

“We will continue to engage with the European Commission — encouraging them and others to support the replacement of the current ban with a regulatory framework that allows the sale of snus,” Chris Proctor, BAT’s head of science and regulation, said in a statement. The Brussels-based commission is the EU’s executive.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Mulier in Geneva at tmulier@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: February 19, 2008 11:46 EST

Research on Youth Smoking for the Tobacco Industry

UC Continues to Act in Secrecy, Doing Research on Youth Smoking for the Tobacco Industry

By Leland Yee, Ph.D.
Assistant President pro Tem
California State Senate

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times uncovered a smoldering controversy regarding tobacco industry funded research at the University of California (UC). It is puzzling how, in good conscience, the UC can accept such money from a company with an extensive and documented history of marketing their addictive product to teens.

In fact, in August 2006, a federal court condemned the tobacco industry’s grant research programs as self-serving investments designed to mislead the public and distort public policy. In addition, the US President’s Cancer Panel recommends that recipients of National Cancer Institute grants be prohibited from accepting money from the tobacco industry. Furthermore, prestigious institutions across the world have declared that taking money from the tobacco industry for research is against the mission and purpose of their university.

In spite of this overwhelming condemnation of tobacco industry dollars supporting research, in September the UC Board of Regents ignored the findings of legal and academic experts and voted to continue to do business with the tobacco industry through research grant funding.

Throughout the year-long debate on the issue of tobacco industry funding of research, the UC administration continually argued that the research conducted through tobacco industry-funded grants is transparent. This public university system claims that there is no need to deny tobacco funding or add special provisions to industry grants because all grants are open for the public to see.

Despite this argument, tobacco industry-funded research grants at UC have been anything but transparent. UCLA, mentioned in the federal racketeering case against the U.S. tobacco industry, is once again at the center of the conflict by refusing to open their tobacco-industry research to the public eye. The original controversy involved a tobacco-funded UCLA researcher’s conclusion that secondhand smoke was not harmful. This claim is exploited by the tobacco industry and used to defend smoking-related lawsuits throughout the world. The most recent dilemma involves $6 million Philip Morris USA-funded grant to establish the Adolescent Smoking Cessation Center at UCLA.

UCLA has denied formal requests for information about its Adolescent Smoking Cessation Center. After receiving pressure, UCLA finally agreed to hand over a copy of the grant proposal to members of the public, but the University redacted a majority of the proposal with the exception of background information and budget justifications.

The level of redaction is alarming on a number of levels. First and foremost, Philip Morris – the world’s largest cigarette company and maker of the brand most popular with minors, has firsthand access to why and how youth get addicted and stay addicted to tobacco, yet a taxpayer-funded university will not share public information with interested citizens or public health professionals. This secrecy, on behalf of tobacco giant Philip Morris, leads to speculation that the UC is doing something it doesn’t want the general public to know about.

It cannot be ignored that youth smoking prevention programs funded by the tobacco giant actually promote youth addiction to tobacco rather than prevent it.

It is long overdue for the University of California – a public, taxpayer supported system – to stop doing their business in secret and it is even more imperative that they stop doing research on youth smoking for the tobacco industry.

Leland Yee is a member of the California State Senate Democratic Leadership team and the Assistant President pro Tem of the Senate. Senator Yee is also a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.

Posted on February 19, 2008