It has to be asked… Is Linda McAvan MEP, European Parliament rapporteur for the Tobacco Products Directive, in an unholy alliance with the tobacco industry?
[...]
|
|||||
|
I felt moved to write to MEPs… To: the ENVI committee rapporteur for the Tobacco Products Directive, Linda McAvan MEP CC: ENVI MEPs 7 May 2013 Dear Ms McAvan I wanted to make a few points about the draft tobacco products directive, your draft report and some of the points raised by you and other [...] Key votes in July and September – everything still to play for. We’re getting closer to serious position-taking and the first decisions in the European Parliament. So here is a post with my suggestions for amendments to the directive and some information for anyone interested in following what is going on in the process. [...] Dave Dorn of VapourTrails TV - an e-cigarette user and enthusiast – explains e-cigs and goes through some commonly held misconceptions. [...] Christian Engström, the Swedish Pirate Party MEP, makes the case for unbanning snus to the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) – also here on his blog. He is a shadow rapporteur to that committee, and they will provide an opinion to the Parliament on the European Commission’s proposal for the [...] Completely counter-productive assessment of the value of e-cigarettes Oh dear … Israel planning to ban e-cigarettes. I’ve responded to the consultation as below. You’ll need Google translate (the screen shot above is generated by Google) and I ended up sending my response to the site administrator as it was rejected by the web [...] …a couple of interesting pieces on e-cigarettes in The Economist magazine. No smoke. Why the fire? and E-cigarettes: Vape ’em if you got ’em What to make of this…? [...] It was painful to go through the European Commission’s attempt to justify the continuing ban on ‘snus’ (or ‘oral tobacco’ as it is known in Brussels). It’s hard to imagine a worse case of evidence being massaged into supporting a pre-determined policy conclusion – the conclusion is that beloved of bureaucrats everywhere: we were right [...] Letter to The Times, 14 March 2013 on how misguided excessive regulation threatens one of the most promising technologies for public health – the e-cigarette. [...] Q. What do e-cigarettes and garlic capsules have in common? A. Neither are medicines Would it actually be legal to classify e-cigarettes as medicines? A landmark legal case involving the classification of garlic capsules suggests the European Court of Justice would not accept this definition. Other recent legal cases in member states support that [...] A response to the UK Balance of Competences Review… Should the EU impose a blanket ban on oral tobacco (other than in Sweden, which is allowed an exception)? Why not allow each member state to decide? If a member state wants to take a robust evidence-based approach to tobacco harm eduction by allowing low [...] European Parliament: heading for an own goal? On Monday 25th February 2013, the European Parliament committee that is scrutinising the proposed EU Tobacco Products Directive holds a public hearing, and take evidence from invited witnesses. The committee is the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (known as ENVI). This post provides links to [...] Over regulating the alternatives is a form of protection for the most harmful and dominant form of nicotine delivery – cigarettes E-cigarettes represent an amazing market-based, user-driven public health insurgency. From nowhere to €500m in Europe, the market is growing rapidly and already almost equals the market for NRT, according to the European Commission’s consultants [...] Victory! 19 April 2013… Press Complaints Commission notice issued. News! 19 March 2013… Marie Claire agrees to publish response from me (to come). News! 3 March 2013… Correction issued by Mail on Sunday see here… [...] The European Commission has published a draft directive on tobacco products. Unfortunately it bans and obstructs much lower-risk alternative to cigarettes, such as smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes, so its effect would to protect cigarettes and harm health. However, it is not too late to do something about it. [...] On 30 November, the draft EU Tobacco Products Directive was circulated for inter-service consultation (ie. sent round all other Directorates General in the European Commission). Its contents are not yet public, but it is widely thought to maintain the ban on snus and to impose strict restrictions or even bans on reduced risk non-combustible tobacco [...] Dear delegate I am writing as you gather in Seoul with colleagues from around the world from 12-17 November 2012 for the fifth Conference of the Parties of the FCTC. Your work is vitally important in the global struggle against cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory illness, and I wish you well with your negotiations and deliberations this week. However, I [...] I gave an interview recently about nicotine and tobacco harm reduction – you can read it here. But it’s nothing like as good as Gerry Stimson, one the of the greats of public health, explaining it here on YouTube. It is a great blend of genuine concern for health, scientific insight and respect for individual [...] Campaigning by so-called health groups to ban much less hazardous alternatives to smoking is dangerous, unethical, lazy with facts and utterly without regard for the people they are supposedly trying to help – see my detailed post Death by regulation. But they go to a whole new level of awfulness – evil maybe – when [...] Is it right to ban certain types of smokeless tobacco from sale in the European Union? The short and unequivocal answer is ’no’. But surely banning any type of tobacco can only reduce the size of the overall tobacco market and therefore be good for health? No, not at all, it just isn’t that simple… [...]
I lifted the box above from the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper that has to be clear, concise and to the point in its communications or its busy and clever readers buy the Financial Times instead. If only the European Commission could choose where it gets its scientific [...] There seems to be a plan to give pregnant women £200 and training in nutrition – it will be a ‘Health in Pregnancy Grant’ [Pregnant women to get healthy food grant - Telegraph] [BBC]. Despite the recently announced end of spin, this was spun in the media several days before its real announcement, [...] If you want to say something absolutely jaw-dropping in its idiocy, then you need to cloak it in lots of fake sophistication. And this is what ASH Scotland has done with its new position paper on smokeless tobacco. No less than 266 references are used to support the truly stupid idea that smokeless [...] If a country wanted to reduce tobacco use to a level that meant it was comparable with other public health risks, then why not simply reduce the amount that can be sold or number of customers they can have, by allocating quotas to manufacturers and allowing trade in quotas? This proposal has surfaced [...] Long awaited 1st of July arrives, and most enclosed workplaces (including pubs and restaurants) in England will go smoke-free today [BBC]. It’s a triumph for all involved – both campaigners and government insiders – following a sustained struggle. It’s also a vital next step in dragging down smoking rates – see chart based [...] Hopes that Big Tobacco might be in retreat are looking pretty forlorn. I came across BAT’s share price data showing a huge gain over the last seven years, including a sharp and sustained rise following agreement of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) – an attempt by 146 governments (so far) [...] Mia culpa on the cycling and jumping red lights thing [see silly Cyclists obey the law and die post]. An excellent analysis by Marianne Promberger completely fillets the figures and trashes conclusions drawn in the media (and reported uncritically by me…) read her analysis here. For London, the proportion of cycle casualties (fatal, serious and [...] The Independent on Sunday reached a new peak of absurdity last weekend when it blazed over its front page: Cannabis – an apology and reversed its 1997 campaign for legalisation of the dope, apologising to its readers for leading them astray. The Indy frets that: Record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a [...] The Chancellor wants an independent board to run the NHS (BBC: Brown plans independent NHS board) and leading Blairites want a Charter to regulate the role of ministers (Guardian: Labour unveils plans for BBC-style charter for NHS) All of which seems to be part of a move to greater devolution as the Next Big Idea [...] The recent hot weather remined me how annoying much of the 21st Century is likely to be, what with climate change and everything. So I wondered how much of it I might have to endure. You can look up how long you are expected to live at the Government Actuary Department’s life tables. I’ve got [...] |
|||||
|
Copyright © 2013 The counterfactual - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
|||||