July 10th, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Uncategorized
1 Comment »
As many of you may know, the famous tobacco control scientist and advocate, Professor Stan Glantz, has over the past few years been focusing on the issue of depictions of smoking in movies. Part of the concern stems from good evidence that young people are highly influenced by movies due to their cultural value and glamorous nature.
The other part stems from a history of use of “product placement” in movies. This refers to the movie producers agreeing to include a specific product in their movie in return for some incentive (typically money). A famous example of this is a letter from Sylvester Stallone agreeing to smoke particular brands of cigarettes in his movies for $500,000. So when one combines the financial power of the tobacco industry with product placement we end up with a hell of a lot more gratuitous smoking in movies than is necessary.
Of course the movie companies and many movie enthusiasts argue about the need for art to imitate life etc., etc. However numerous examples demonstrate that to be a lot of nonsense. Professor Glantz points to depictions of Marlboro cigarettes being dragged around or used by aliens in movies like Men In Black. Is it really true that those aliens prefer Marlboros and so showing the brand was necessary for the movie to be accurate? Mmm….I doubt it.
My favorite example comes from the film “A Beautiful Mind”. The movie stars Russell Crowe in the lead role portraying the (still living and working) Princeton University professor, John Nash. In real life, John Nash suffered from schizophrenia but did not smoke. In the movie he suffered from schizophrenia, but smoked. I’m not sure why the producers changed this aspect of reality or what it added to the movie.
But these are details. Professor Glantz’ main point is that movies made to be viewed by kids do not need to include smoking, and therefore should be given an R rating if they do, just as they are if they depict illicit drug use. Note that an R doesn’t stop people under 17 from seeing the movie in a movie theater. It just means they need to be accompanied by an adult. It also doesn’t ban smoking from movies, it just means that movies with smoking in them will receive an R rating, just as sex, drugs, cursing and certain types of violence will get a movie an R rating. Of course the movie industry is very clear that a large part of its audience is kids and particularly teens. The net effect of the rating changes professor Glantz is recommending would be that gratuitous smoking will be taken out of many movies and particularly those aimed at kids.
I must admit that I didn’t initially pay much attention to this proposal, and my natural inclination was to doubt whether it really was worth the effort. But while I was at the UK National Smoking Cessation Conference in London last week I heard Professor Glantz talk about this idea and I came around to thinking its maybe not as extreme as I first thought. In fact he convinced me that it’s a reasonably sensible idea that would likely result in thousands fewer teens taking up smoking. Sometime soon the full audio recording of Professor Glantz’ presentation will be posted on the conference website along with his slides. I’ll post the link when its available, but for now those interested in this subject may want to check out the following website:
http://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/
This post, Should Movies With Smoking In Them Receive An R-Rating?, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
June 22nd, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy
No Comments »
On Friday 12th June, the US Senate voted in favor of a bill that gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products. President Obama (who as a Senator was a sponsor of the bill, as was John McCain) has indicated he will sign the bill into law.
Public health advocates have been fighting for FDA regulation of tobacco for over 15 years. However, not every public health advocate has supported this particular piece of legislation, and the fact that Philip Morris Tobacco Company supported it caused many to have doubts. But now that the bill is finally going to be law, what will it mean? As a guide to this, I’d recommend that you read the slides from a paper by Mitch Zeller at the recent Virginia Youth Tobacco Conference. Much of this post is adapted from his slides. These outline the key parts of the bill and what they mean in some detail and are worth a careful read, (Mitch Zeller is the former Associate Commissioner and Director of the Office of Tobacco Programs at the Food and Drug Administration). Download his slides here.
The bill does not require FDA to regulate tobacco exactly the same way it does pharmaceuticals (drugs and devices), partly because it would be impossible for any tobacco product to demonstrate that it is safe and effective for its purpose. So instead the legislation creates a new, parallel set of rules and procedures just for tobacco, but using much of the same regulatory framework that was created for drugs. The new standard around which the tobacco bill is based is THE PROTECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH.
-Section 904 mandates that FDA will receive brand-specific information on ingredients, nicotine delivery, and any smoke constituent FDA identifies as harmful or potentially harmful
- Companies must also provide FDA with all documents developed after the bill is enacted related to health, toxicological, behavioral, or physiologic effects of current or future products.
- FDA also has the right to request any such industry document produced prior to the enactment of this law.
- FDA can issue performance standards to prohibit or limit the allowable levels of substances in a finished tobacco product. FDA is granted this power in section 907. Products that don’t comply with the levels established in product standards can’t be sold.
- Nicotine cannot be banned but it can be reduced to very low levels.
- FDA needs to have supporting science to back up any standards it requires, or any ingredients it wants banned.
Clearly the tobacco product standards are going to be a key part of regulation of tobacco. Here’s what the bill says on these: Read more »
This post, FDA Regulation Of Tobacco: What Does It Mean?, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
May 18th, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network
No Comments »
I’ve previously written about what face-to-face smoking cessation services typically do, largely based on my own experience. However, while at the SRNT annual conference I met two Smoking Cessation Advisors working in Lancashire, England who appeared to have a successful service, so thought it worth sharing some of their information.
Jan Holding and Eileen Ward manage a UK National Health Service (NHS) Stop Smoking Service in Lancashire in the north of England. Both are nurses by training and many of the 14 staff providing the treatment have primarily a nursing background. Their service sees around 450 new clients per month (i.e. over 5000 new clients per year). Services are provided at “community sessions” at various locations all over their catchment area, and clients are given their own hand-held record which they keep, and take with them to sessions, enabling them to attend whichever community location suits them at the time. While clients can make scheduled appointments, the service is also flexible, allowing clients to “drop-in” to community sessions without an appointment. Although some initial assessment sessions take place in a group format, most of the sessions are delivered in a one-to-one format via a relatively brief discussion with a smoking cessation advisor. These community sessions often take place in a large community room from 4pm to 8 pm in the evening, with multiple types of services being provided in the same room at the same time at different corners (e.g. initial assessments in one corner, prescribing of varenicline in another, and nicotine replacement therapy in another). It is not uncommon for around 200 clients to attend a single community session.
Clients are frequently encouraged to use NRT prior to quitting smoking (about half do this) and usually use more than one smoking cessation medicine (more than half do). Nicotine replacement therapy is provided via a voucher system requiring either no cost to the client, or just a co-pay (around $10 USD).
The service runs 6 days per week and includes evening sessions, and aims to reduce most of the usual barriers to entering treatment. Their “3 As” approach emphasizes “Accessibility, Availability and Adaptability”. They also specifically try to develop smoking cessation advisors who are passionate about their role, have a positive attitude to the importance of quitting smoking, and are therefore very committed to that work, as well as being knowledgeable about it.
My understanding is that the quit rates at this service are pretty good. But perhaps the best testimony to its success is the fantastic volume of clients who attend…..largely influenced by positive word-of-mouth via other clients. The success of this service reminds us that there isn’t just one way to do it, that all smoking cessation counselors and systems may need to be flexible and adaptable in order to help as many smokers to quit as possible.
For further information on what a smokers’ clinic does, see: What does a tobacco treatment clinic do?
This post, Smoking Cessation Programs: Lessons From The UK, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
May 7th, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network
3 Comments »
I’m currently attending the annual conference of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. This is the main organization for nicotine researchers and this conference is often the first place that exciting new research findings are presented, prior to being published in more detail in scientific journals. So this week my posts will be based on some of the most interesting things I have come across at this conference, including new developments in helping smokers quit.
There is currently considerable interest (hype?) in the e-cigarette, and I have written about it before. Last weekend I was walking through our local shopping mall in New Jersey with my 8-year old daughter when she tugged at my arm and said “dad, dad, theres a man smoking over there.” I told her that couldn’t be true because people arnt allowed to smoke inside the mall, but she insisted. On looking over I was surprised to see that sure enough, someone was standing next to a booth and appeared to be puffing away on a cigarette. So we walked over to investigate, and found out that in fact it was an e-cigarette and he was selling the product at the booth. We chatted and he showed me the product which actually looks very impressive. I had already purchased an earlier version a couple of years ago, which was more stogie cigar-sized, but this one looked and puffed very much like a cigarette and was also considerably less expensive than the earlier model.
But whenever discussing this product, to me the first and most critical question (after …”whats in the vapor and might it harm my health?”) is, “does it deliver enough nicotine to satisfy nicotine cravings? “ Until I came to this conference, I hadn’t met anyone who had completed a study that included measurement of blood nicotine levels in people using the e-cigarette. This question is critical because cigarette smokers are used to receiving a boost in blood nicotine levels of at least 10 ng/ml from each cigarette, and for a product to have any chance of effectively reducing craving for or replacing cigarettes it needs to come close to that level of nicotine delivery.
But I was lucky enough to bump into Dr Murray Laugesen, a tobacco control expert from New Zealand who has been one of the foremost proponents of the product. He showed me a preliminary report on the e-cigarette which was being presented at the conference. Full details of the study will be presented in a formal publication sometime in the future, but for right now the main conclusion is that although the e-cigarette CONTAINS a reasonable amount of nicotine it actually DELIVERS very little nicotine to the user, and certainly much much less that can be obtained from smoking. To my mind this relegates the status of this product to that of a very nice and cleverly designed theatre prop, and unfortunately not a product that is likely to be highly effective in helping smokers to quit smoking.
As always, if you are interested in using a product to assist you in quitting smoking, your best bet is to use a product that has been approved by the medicines licensing agency in your country as safe and effective for that purpose (e.g. in the U.S. that would be the FDA).
For more information about Dr Laugesen’s work on the e-cigarette, visit:
http://www.healthnz.co.nz/ecigarette.htm
*This post, Does The e-Cigarette Deliver Nicotine?, was originally published on Healthline.com by Johnatan Foulds, MA, MAppSci, PhD.*
