“The Eighth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP8) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is less than three months away. Taking place in Geneva from 1 to 6 October, it will focus on topics such as the shaping of a medium-term strategic framework, which Continue Reading
Vaping
Forget the little guy, it’s all Big Pharma now
Anyone remember when the United States was all about the entrepreneur? How many sought their fortunes, the “American Dream” (including the white picket fence) and so forth? It seems that modern day America is now home to the corporations (very Continuum-like). So who better to look after the health and Continue Reading
Plain Packaging & the TPD
I almost missed this but, recently the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the latest dataset for the Adult Smoking Habits in the UK which showed some interesting points. Naturally, those points are being spun to show how “successful” measures have been.
Another Round of Bullshit Bingo
If like me, you call “bullshit” whenever a news article claims that “e-cigs are as bad as smoking”, you’ve probably been playing the same game of bullshit bingo as I have. Trouble is, I never seem to win anything. The latest headlines, generated by a dodgy press release naturally, to Continue Reading
A New Confidence Trick
As noted in 2006, ahead of the free vote to ban smoking in public spaces: It is essential that campaigners create the impression of inevitable success. Campaigning of this kind is literally a confidence trick: the appearance of confidence both creates confidence and demoralises the opposition. They “knew” they were Continue Reading
American Cancer Society’s Confused Position
In somewhat of a surprising move, the American Cancer Society has quietly updated its position statement on electronic cigarettes. I say quietly because there is no mention of this update on any of the social media channels, nor was there any special press release or blog post on their website. Continue Reading
March of the Puritans
To borrow from Andrew Allison, once upon a time private property rights were highly valued. As long as it was legal, what consenting adults did was no-one else’s business. With the March of the Puritans, however, there are umpteen state-funded Quangos, sock-puppets and Government busybodies poking their noses in where Continue Reading
Told You So
This week saw another release of the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) with more information on ‘Reasons for Electronic Cigarette Use Among Middle and High School Students’. Given that Scott Gottlieb made a big thing in his speech about youth, it is hardly surprising the route that this Continue Reading
Why the e-cigarette industry needs STANDARDS, not regulation
I noticed this piece in The Conversation yesterday (it also popped up on another, unrelated news site), and unlike the usual vaping related articles, it wasn’t penned by the illustrious Simon Chapman. Of course, just because it wasn’t written by Chapman doesn’t mean it’s going to be a positive article. After Continue Reading
E-Cigarettes and DNA Damage
Leaving aside the fact that I haven’t posted for a while (almost two months), it isn’t particularly surprising to find that a) the media are at it again, and b) tobacco control researchers are at it again. We have seen this kind of study before, at around the same time Continue Reading