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NYC may require tobacco retailers to post warning signs

Source: NEWSDAY.COM Author: MICHAEL FRAZIER The New York Health Department is proposing city tobacco retailers post signs with graphic images such as cancer-ravaged throats and black lungs in an effort to discourage smoking, health officials said Wednesday.The signs - the first of their kind in the country - would include health risk warnings and information on how to quit, said Sarah Perl, assistant commissioner of the city's Bureau of Tobacco Control."You're going to see what a blackened lung looks like; you're going to see what mouth cancer looks like; you're going to see what it looks like when you have throat cancer," Perl said. "They're going to have to think, 'Do I really want to pay 10 bucks for mouth cancer?' "The city Board of Health will hold hearings and vote in September on the proposal. Officials expect opposition from many of the city's 12,000 tobacco retailers and the cigarette industry. Jim Calvin, president of the state Association of Convenience Stores, said a new law giving the Food and Drug Administration more tobacco control is sufficient. "I'm not sure we would be eager to give up additional wall space and advertising space for posters and signs and images," said Calvin, whose group represents 7,700 stores statewide. President Barack Obama signed a law Monday allowing the FDA to lower the amount of nicotine in tobacco products; forbid ads geared toward children; ban sweetened cigarettes that appeal to youngsters; and prohibit "light" and "low tar" labeling. The Health Department said its proposal is aimed mainly [...]

Charlotte Parker2009-06-25T10:49:05-07:00June, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Up in smoke: health insurers hold billions in tobacco stocks

Source: Southernstudies.org Author: Desiree Evans A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that major U.S., Canadian and British life and health insurance companies are investing billions of dollars in tobacco company stock. Researchers first revealed that health and life insurance companies had major investments in tobacco companies in 1995 in an article in the British medical journal Lancet. More than 10 years later, insurance companies are still deeply invested in "big" tobacco, despite the national calls upon them to divest. "Despite calls upon the insurance industry to get out of the tobacco business by physicians and others, insurers continue to put their profits above people's health," said Wesley Boyd, the new report's lead author and a faculty member of Harvard Medical School. "It's clear their top priority is making money, not safe-guarding people's well-being." The report found that seven health and life-insurance companies in both the United States and overseas have nearly $4.5 billion invested in companies whose affiliates produce cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco. "Although investing in tobacco while selling life or health insurance may seem self-defeating, insurance firms have figured out ways to profit from both," Boyd said. "Insurers exclude smokers from coverage or, more commonly, charge them higher premiums. Insurers profit -- and smokers lose -- twice over." The study highlights New Jersey-based Prudential Financial Inc., which sells life insurance and long-term disability coverage. With total tobacco holdings of $264.3 million, Prudential Financial is a major investor in three tobacco firms, including America's biggest cigarette [...]

Charlotte Parker2009-06-19T07:41:28-07:00June, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Tobacco product has experts divided

Source: www.gazette.com Author: Brian Newsome Sweden brought us meatballs, the Nobel prize, Ikea, the Saab and the Volvo. But the country's latest mark on the U.S. is not so benign. An oral tobacco product known as snus recently arrived in Colorado Springs and other U.S. towns. The moist tobacco, which comes in a tea-bag-style pouch that goes under the upper lip, has public health experts divided. Some say snus (rhymes with loose) could save scores of lives if smokers switch to it, because the product contains far fewer carcinogens than do cigarettes, chew and snuff. Critics, though, say snus will only increase the number of people addicted to nicotine and poses a serious threat to anti-tobacco efforts. They say it could create a new crop of young nicotine addicts, while smokers could just as easily supplement their habit rather than substitute one for the other. Some Americans have been using snus by ordering it online or buying it in U.S. test markets, but R.J. Reynolds Tobacco didn't release Camel Snus nationally until a few weeks ago, the first and only major tobacco company to do so. Philip Morris is selling Marlboro Snus in test markets. In Sweden, nearly a fifth of men in 2007 said they used snus daily, compared with 12 percent who smoke, according to Swedish Match, the country's largest snus producer. The trend doesn't hold for Swedish women: just 4 percent use snus and 16 percent smoke. Sweden also has fewer cases of lung cancer than the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-03-24T17:33:15-07:00March, 2009|Oral Cancer News|