An opinion poll carried out for the European Union has found an increasing majority of people across the EU favour a ban on smoking in public places.

The highest level of support (88%) is for smokefree offices and indoor workplaces and 62% would like smokefree bars and pubs, the Eurobarometer survey said. The survey has been published ahead of World No Tobacco Day on May 31.

EU figures show that 650,000 Europeans die each year from tobacco-related diseases. About 80,000 are killed by passive smoking, including an estimated 19,000 non-smokers. On balance, support for smokefree public places has increased by 4% (since 2005) and the proportion totally supporting the measure by 7%."

The poll is a boost for EU health chief Markos Kyprianou, who wants a full EU-wide ban on smoking in public places.

Mr Kyprianou said: I am heartened by the support shown in the report, and this can only strengthen the momentum towards making European public and workplaces smoke-free by 2009 .

Nearly three-quarters of Britons (who were surveyed) backed a total ban on smoking in all indoor public areas and in restaurants. Around 30,000 people were surveyed between October and November 2006 by Eurobarometer.

Source: ASH daily news and Channel 4 & Daily Mirror 22 May 2007 Link to article:
http://tinyurl.com/32zct2 & http://tinyurl.com/3ym7xy

Smokers in Britain are trying to quit more often than any other Europeans but many blame the pressures of modern life for failing, a survey of 27 countries has revealed.

Almost half of British smokers tried to give up in the past year much higher than the EU average and many sought help from their GP. But while Italians blamed their friends for their failure to quit and Austrians said that they could not cope with nicotine cravings, the British overwhelmingly cited stress as the reason why they lapsed.

According to the Eurobarometer survey 46% of British smokers tried to quit in 2006. This was much higher than in France (31%), Germany (27%) and Italy (22%).

The British are by far the most likely in Europe to seek professional help, with 41% asking a doctor or other health adviser, compared with the European average of 18 per cent.

The Department of Health said that the survey also highlighted Britain's successful quit rate. A spokesman said: quitting with professional support or with help from nicotine replacement therapy increases your chances by up to fourfold.

Source: ASH daily news and Times 23 May 2007
Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/3dyt2z

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a global ban on smoking at work and in enclosed public places.

The United Nations agency said a ban would help limit non-smokers' exposure to secondhand smoke, which can kill through heart disease and serious respiratory and cardiovascular illness.

The evidence is clear, there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke, said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan in a statement ahead of World No Tobacco Day which will be observed on Thursday for the 18th year.

Many countries have already taken action. I urge all countries that have not yet done so to take this immediate and important step to protect the health of all, she said.

By July 1, 240 million people worldwide will be protected by smokefree legislation, said Wayne Kao of the International Union against Cancer, which supports a smokefree world.

Unfortunately, that is less than 4 percent of the world population, Kao continued.

The WHO said some 200,000 workers die each year due to exposure to tobacco smoke at work, while around 700 million children, around half the world's total, breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, particularly in the home.

Remove the pollutant -- tobacco smoke -- by implementing 100 percent smoke-free environments. Ventilation and smoking areas do not reduce exposure to a safe level of risk, said Armando Peruga, head of WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative.

Source: Reuters 29 May 2007
Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/2wcptu

Varenicline for smoking cessation: Final appraisal determination

The Appraisal Committee has prepared a Final Appraisal Determination (FAD) on Varenicline for smoking cessation and submitted it to the Institute.

The FAD has been sent to the formal consultees for this appraisal who have 15 working days to consider whether they wish to appeal against it. Subject to any appeal by consultees, the FAD may be used as the basis for the Institute's guidance on the use of the appraised technology in the NHS in England and Wales.

Please note that the appeal period for this appraisal will close at 5pm on 13th June 2007.
* Varenicline for smoking cessation: Final appraisal determination
30/05/2007
http://guidance.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=431452
Evaluation report:
http://guidance.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=431476

Prev Med. 2007 Apr 4; [Epub ahead of print]
The impact of a smoking ban on hospital admissions for coronary heart disease.
Khuder SA, Milz S, Jordan T, Price J, Silvestri K, Butler P.
OBJECTIVE.: In March 2002, the city of Bowling Green, Ohio, implemented a clean indoor air ordinance banning smoking in workplaces and public places. This study evaluates the effect of this ordinance on hospital admissions for smoking-related diseases.
METHODS.: A quasi-experimental design with interrupted time-series was used including a matched control city (Kent, Ohio) with no clean indoor air ordinance. Data on hospital admissions during the period of January 1999 to June 2005 were analyzed using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models.
RESULTS.: A reduction in admission rates for smoking-related diseases was achieved in Bowling Green compared to the control city. The largest reduction was for coronary heart disease, where rates were decreased significantly by 39% after 1 year and by 47% after 3 years following the implementation of the ordinance. ARIMA models revealed a statistically significant downward trend in monthly admission rates for coronary heart disease (Bowling Green, omega=-1.69, p=0.036 vs. Kent, omega=-1.14, p=0.183) and support the hypothesis that the ordinance had a significant impact on admission rates for coronary heart disease.
CONCLUSION.: The findings of this study suggest that clean indoor air ordinances lead to a reduction in hospital admissions for coronary heart disease, thus reducing health care costs.

J Health Econ. 2007 Apr 8;
Markowitz S.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is a leading cause of mortality among infants and is responsible for thousands of infant deaths every year. Prenatal smoking and postnatal environmental smoke have been identified as strong risk factors for SIDS. Given the link between smoking and SIDS, this paper examines the direct effects of cigarette prices, taxes and clean indoor air laws in explaining changes in the incidence of SIDS over time in the United States. State-level counts of SIDS cases are generated from death certificates for 1973-2003. After controlling for some observed and unobserved confounding factors, the results show that higher cigarette prices and taxes are associated with reductions in SIDS cases. Stronger restrictions on smoking in workplaces, restaurants and child care centers are also effective in reducing SIDS deaths.

The Greeks puffed away more than any other nation, smoking over 3,000 cigarettes per head of population in 2006, according to ERC, a market-research group. It compares annual consumption in 120 countries, which together account for over 95% of global consumption. Spain, another Mediterranean country, also smokes heavily, but it is the traditionally poorer eastern European countries that dominate the top 15. Rich Japan is the lone non-European nation.

Source: The Economist
Date: 2007-05-15
URL: http://economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9177235 ID: 247402

There are many lifestyle factors that can impact on the health of people's teeth, such as nutrition, amount of sleep, mental stress, tobacco use, and exercise.

A study of 219 factory workers in Japan from 1999 to 2003 evaluated the effect of different lifestyle factors on the progression of periodontal diseases.

The study found that the number one lifestyle factor that independently impacted the progression of periodontal disease was smoking. The number of hours of sleep closely followed.

Over 41% of study participants who showed periodontal disease progression from 1999 to 2003 were current smokers. In addition, lack of sleep was identified as a significant lifestyle factor that may play a role in the progression of periodontal disease.

Our findings are in line with other studies that have identified smoking as a strong lifestyle factor affecting oral health, said study author Muneo Tanaka.

Source: ASH daily news and Medilexon 22 May 2007
Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/2qutqh

A Finnish study has found that long term smokers may have a higher risk of becoming depressed in comparison to never smokers.

It is known that depression is associated with cigarette smoking, but the nature of this association is discussed under various hypotheses. First, according to the so called self-medication hypothesis, those who suffer from depressive symptoms smoke cigarettes in order to alleviate their symptoms. The second assumption is that chronic persistent smoking may have a role in the etiology of depression. The third hypothesis suggests that there is a reciprocal mechanism between smoking and depression. The fourth hypothesis says that there are shared underlying genetic factors explaining this co-morbidity.

This study conducted in the Department of Public Health at the University of Helsinki explored these assumptions. Researchers used data collected within the Finnish Adult Twin Cohort Project in which the health and health behaviour of four thousand male and five thousand female twins was followed through a 15 year period.

Dr. Tellervo Korhonen from the Department of Public Health at the University of Helsinki said: The mechanisms underlying the association between smoking and depression are very complicated. Although nicotine as such may possibly have a short term positive effect on mood, long term exposure to tobacco smoke may be one risk factor in development of depression. However, this mechanism is still relatively unknown. Examination of potential shared genetic vulnerability for both tobacco dependence and depression is among the further challenges.

The study found that smokers who quit have an elevated risk of depressive symptoms in the short run. However, in the long run, this risk declines to the level of never smokers. In other words, both completely smokefree life style and successful smoking cessation in the long run seem to protect from depressive symptoms.

Dr. Korhonen added that to prevent depression - smokefree life and successful smoking cessation seem to have a positive impact.

Sources: ASH daily news and News Medical Net 23 May 2007 Link to article: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=25422

Tobacco giant JTI-Macdonald Corp. and one of its former top executives will stand trial on charges they engineered a massive smuggling operation that defrauded taxpayers out of more than $1 billion.

Ontario Court of Justice Judge David Fairgrieve ruled in Toronto there is sufficient evidence for one-time chief executive Edward Lang and the company he once headed to face several counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.

The ruling comes after a two-year preliminary inquiry, the contents of which are protected by a publication ban. Fairgrieve also discharged six other defendants who were involved with the Montreal-based company, known as RJR Macdonald at the time. The charges stem from an alleged smuggling ring that the tobacco company is said to have set up during the early 1990s to counter high taxes slapped on the sale of cigarettes.

Source: ASH daily news and London Free Press, 31 May 2007
Article link: http://tinyurl.com/2qzs6z

An airline targeted solely at smokers looks set to start flights later this year. Smokers International Airways (SMINTair) is due to fly from Düsseldorf to Nagoya in Japan from October using Boeing 747 aircraft with 138 business and first-class seats plus a bar and two lounges.

The planes will apparently have advanced air-conditioning systems, plenty of ash trays, and the exclusivity of flying encountered in the 1960s, dearly missed by so many, according to the airline's website.

First-class return fares to Nagoya will be from 6,765 and business-class from 4,397.

Alexander Schoppmann, SMINTair's managing director (a smoker) said that he has had dozens of inquiries from potential passengers. Schoppmann is using his own money and also raising funds from Swiss investors, added: We are connecting Europe with Asia for smokers. There are millions of smokers in Europe and Asia, but there are only 138 seats on our planes. I am very positive about how well we will do.

Amanda Sandford, from ASH said: I hope it comes with a big health warning. I'd say it's highly unlikely to be popular. Smokers and nonsmokers say they prefer smoke-free planes.

Source: ASH daiyl news (www.ash.org.uk) and Times 16 June 2007
Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/yruxz6

According to research the market in products designed to help smokers give up is set to break the 100m mark this year.

The ban on smoking in public places in England that comes into force on July 1 is expected to propel sales towards that figure, which represents one-tenth of the global market.

Martin Dockrell, from ASH said: There are 4 million smokers in England intending to quit. They won't all go cold turkey.

Sales of anti-smoking products have risen by 50% in the past five years, according to Mintel, the market research analysts, and the forecast for the core market envisages a similar rate of growth for the next five. With the rapid development of a new generation of treatments, overall market growth rate could be set to climb even higher.

The industry continues to be dominated by nicotine patches and chewing gum, which account for about 87% of total sales. The largest operators in the market are Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Johnson & Johnson. Last year the global market of smoking-cessation products was worth more than 1bn, according to GSK.

The second generation of smoking-cessation drugs are those that contain no nicotine such as Zyban and more recently released Champix. A third generation of treatments is under development that could potentially immunise smokers against the addictive effects of nicotine.

Celtic, the private equity firm and investor in biotech companies, is leading the way with experimental treatments with vaccines to treat nicotine addiction. Michael Earl, managing director of Celtic, said: The vaccines can be used as a means of quitting smoking and also to protect former smokers from re-addiction.

Lehman Brothers has estimated that the nicotine vaccine market could be worth $1.25bn (630m) a year. Other companies operating in this area are Cytos, a Swiss biotechnology company, and Nabi Biopharmaceuticals of the US.

Source: ASH daily news and Financial Times 4 June 2007 Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/ytvmhu