Beneficence or maleficence - Big Tobacco and smokeless products

(Disponible en anglais seulement.)

Editorial highlights recent developments among tobacco transnationals and how the tobacco control community should respond. Industry mergers and takeovers by Philip Morris USA and Reynolds American and revitalized marketing of smokeless tobacco products, underscores the urgent need for a regulatory framework for all tobacco and nicotine products which would also set limits for contents and extend controls on packaging and marketing.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2008.02483.x

Comment: The tobacco problem is NOT going away anytime soon...

Smoking behavior and interest in quitting among homeless smokers

(Disponible en anglais seulement.)

This cross-sectional survey reveals people who are homeless that smoke are interested in quitting smoking and getting help to quit smoking. Also having a smoking-related disease, more self-confidence in their ability to quit smoking, and more social support for quitting smoking were related with a greater willingness to quit smoking and more interest in cessation counselling.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2004.03.010

Comment: More research into cessation amongst special populations.

The system implodes : the 10 worst corporations of 2008

(Disponible en anglais seulement).

Robert Weissman, editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action, reports on the 10 worst corporations of 2008 - AIG, Cargill, Chevron, CNPC, Constellation Energy, Dole, General Electric, Imperial Sugar, Philip Morris International and Roche.

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2008/112008/weissman.html

Comment: Philip Morris International is listed as a corporate menace for defying public health by selling tobacco, and exporting it to world markets free of any liability for the damage done to human health.

Measurement of nicotine in household dust

(Disponible en anglais seulement.)

Dust samples from self-reported non-smoking homes and smoking homes were collected in addition to ascertaining indoor air nicotine concentrations and the number of cigarettes consumed per day from an asthma cohort study. Self-reported non-smoking residences contained lower mean concentrations of nicotine in dust (11.7 ng/mg) compared with smoking residences (43.4 ng/mg).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2008.07.004

Comment: I can't recall ever seeing any studies on this topic...interesting.