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Burned by the recent US ban on kretek cigarettes, Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said government officials would soon meet with their US counterparts in an effort to alleviate smoldering tension over the issue.
Kretek cigarettes were banned by the US Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 21 on the grounds that their sweet flavor encouraged young people to take up smoking.
“We will arrange a meeting and will be having consultations to seek a fair solution to this matter,” Mari told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday.
The discussions, Mari said, are a preliminary response, but if no solution is found, then “at the end, it will be taken to the World Trade Organization.”
Mari said previously that the ban was highly detrimental to this country’s clove farmers and was in breach of WTO rules. . . .
Kretek International is apparently not going to take the issue lying down and is now seeking a declaratory ruling from the US District Court in Washington that its cigars are not cigarettes and can therefore be freely sold.
In its petition, it accused the FDA of “deliberately obfuscating” the definition of cigarette,” adding that “If a product is a cigar, it is not a cigarette, and vice versa.”
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美国疾病控制和预防中心15日公布评估报告称，室内禁烟可以有效降低吸烟者以及吸二手烟者患心脏病的风险。
Philip Morris International joined with U.S. tobacco industry groups on Thursday to ask President Barack Obama's administration to challenge Canada's new law banning flavored cigarettes and small cigars.
Their request comes even as the administration takes its own steps to ban candy, clove and other flavored cigarettes.
"Canada's ban on blended cigarettes violates its WTO (World Trade Organization) obligations and could impose serious economic hardship on U.S. growers of burley tobacco," Roger Quarles, president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association, said in a statement.
"We are asking USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) to review our arguments and to take a strong stand for U.S. burley growers and American jobs," he said.
Philip Morris, which markets its tobacco products in approximately 160 countries, joined the burley growers and several other tobacco associations in asking USTR to press Canada on the issue at a WTO meeting on "technical" trade barriers next week in Geneva.
The American College of Chest Physicians has elected Dr Kalpalatha K Guntupalli, the only woman president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian origin, as its first Asian American woman president.
Hyderabad-born Guntupalli is currently tenured full professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, considered one of the top 10 medical schools in the US, and also chief of pulmonary/critical care and sleep division at BCM.
She will be inaugurated as the new president of the 75-year-old ACCP Nov 1 in San Diego.
With 2010 declared 'Year of Lung' by the Forum of International Respiratory Societies, Guntupalli hopes the AACP will take on a leadership role in "contributing to celebrate lung health around the globe". . . .
Her particular passion is in the field of tobacco control programmes, and over the years she has developed anti-tobacco material in seven languages besides anti-tobacco cartoons for children, inspiring more than 2,00,000 children in India to spread the message about the acute dangers of smoking and tobacco chewing.
An educational CD titled 'Evils of Tobacco', developed specifically for South Asia and containing a 12-minute video documentary and 186-video augmented power-point slides for medical professionals, has been translated into Telugu, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu and Gujarati and is in use in dental schools, elementary and high schools all over India and the US.
Talk's of a black market are already underway on many forums and social sites across the internet as the decision draws near on the fate of the e cigarette in a federal court. Other than a few special interest groups that are funded by big pharmaceutical companies putting pressure on the FDA to act against them, the general public and health officials are singing praises over the e cigarette.
Almost without fail, news articles that attacks the e cigarette has comment areas that are filled with doctors and scientist, along with multitudes of the population showing evidence of the need, want and support for this amazing new product that most ex smokers are calling a "lifesaver".
Since the FDA was exposed on the faulty testing procedures during their preliminary test on the e cigarette, and using personnel on the advisory board that have clear conflicts of interest concerning the e cigarette industry, the general pubic is already showing signs of looking for other means to get the e cigarette and claiming that they will not use tobacco or what they refer to as "worthless" smoking cessation products by the same pharmaceutical companies that are funding the special interest fight against them.
Smoking cigarettes can lead to the development of rheumatic diseases and make them harder to treat, according to three new studies presented this week at the 2009 annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Philadelphia.
The first study focused on what happens when people with rheumatoid arthritis light up while being treated for the disease.
Researchers looked at the medical records of 1,756 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients in Sweden, determined their smoking history or lack thereof and then looked at their response to methotrexate or anti-TNF therapy - two common RA treatments. . . .
Mark Fisher, MD, MPH, a rheumatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston says he found this the most impressive study of the three. "There aren't any studies that show smoking has an effect on response to methotrexate and it was a really well done study. So for those reasons I think it's significant," Dr. Fisher says.
A second study found that smoking is associated with organ damage and disease activity in people with systemic lupus erythematosus, a chronic inflammatory disease that can affect the skin, joints, kidneys, lungs, nervous system and other organs.
（华盛顿综合讯）美国医学院发表报告指出，在公共场合以及工作场所禁止人们吸烟，大幅度减少烟客和非烟客心脏病发作的次数。
The Canadian government is being targeted in a new U.S. advertising campaign that alleges Ottawa's latest anti-smoking law violates international trade agreements by discriminating against U.S. cigarette imports.
In newspaper ads that will run next week in two widely read Capitol Hill newspapers, Kentucky's burley-tobacco growers say they've been side-swiped by legislation that bans candy-flavoured products marketed to youth.
Burley tobacco is air-cured tobacco used primarily for cigarette production. Its growth is centred in Kentucky.
The farmers also are preparing a World Trade Organization complaint that contends provisions in Bill
C-32, which received royal assent Oct. 8, unfairly outlaws the sale in Canada of U.S.-style cigarettes blended with burley.
Canada has banned the manufacture, importation and sale of most flavored cigarettes and small cigars, which have been slammed as little more than an enticement to get children to start smoking.
The law, which came into effect on Thursday, was backed by both government and opposition lawmakers. It also bans tobacco advertising in newspapers and magazines, closing a loophole that had allowed ads in publications that claimed they were read only by adults.
Anti-smoking groups said fruit-flavored cigarettes were marketed like candy to lure young smokers, but the industry complained the law was too broad and would unfairly restrict importation of U.S.-grown burley tobacco.
Lawmakers in U.S. tobacco-growing states have complained the law will cost U.S. jobs, and a U.S. Senator has been blocking the appointment of a White House trade official in a bid to make the Obama administration put pressure on Canada.
From his kitchen table in England, Jack Basharan is helping thousands of American smokers avoid paying U.S. taxes on tobacco.
Jack's mail order, grow your own tobacco business has blossomed since April, when the American government raised tobacco taxes to more than a dollar per pack of cigarettes. Jack's revenue shot up more than 10,000 dollars.
An hour and a half after hearing testimony, a Canadian Senate panel in Ottawa last week approved an anti-smoking bill that Kentucky burley tobacco growers fear may be bad for their business.
The bill, known as "The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act," passed the Senate Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee on a voice vote and without amendments. It now awaits final action in the Canadian Senate.
The measure is intended to ban flavored tobacco products in Canada, but burley growers are worried that the bill will end the export of American burley to Canada.
Burley is one of three kinds of tobacco mixed together with additives for blended tobacco. Some Kentucky lawmakers, led by Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-1st District, have written to American and Canadian officials that because the pending bill in the Canadian Parliament prohibits many of the additives used in blended tobacco, the measure effectively bans burley.
With 85 percent of U.S. burley exported, the implications of the Canadian action and possible similar actions by other nations are enormous, the Kentuckians warned.
Does the shamelessness of tobacco companies - and politicians for that matter - know no bounds?
After a summer of fierce lobbying by the tobacco giant Rothmans Benson & Hedges - namely, a threat to close a factory in Quebec City that employs 300 people - an important bit of health legislation is now at risk.
The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act, Bill C-32, has passed second reading in the House of Commons with the support of all the major political parties.
But now it's stalled in the Senate, where an amendment to gut a key provision of the bill is being proposed, and the move has the backing of a powerful Quebec Conservative MP, Maxime Bernier. Amended or not, final passage of the bill could be threatened by these political machinations.
Honestly, how many times will we fall victim to the blackmail of tobacco companies? And how can our politicians be so naive as to buy into the illusory promises of job creation from a dying (not to mention lethal) industry? . . .
To pretend that this provision of the law will result in a massive curtailment of production at the Quebec City factory of Rothmans Benson & Hedges and job losses that could result in the plant closing is at best disingenuous. And to argue that without the legislation there might be an expansion of the plant is so fantastical that only a politician up for imminent re-election could believe it.
But let's just say, for the sake of argument, that it is true, that the plant's future is threatened by the new law.
Tough. Our children are worth it.
Canada's rookie health minister appears to have won a political tug-of-war with her Quebec colleagues over contentious changes to flavoured-tobacco controls.
The Quebec wing of the Conservative caucus had pulled for amendments that would ban some flavours and additives in cigars and cigarettes but not others.
But Leona Aglukkaq tugged back harder.
"I met with the Quebec caucus and they're in support of the legislation as is," she said Wednesday.
Bill C-32, also known as the Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act, would ban all flavours and additives in tobacco products except for menthol. . . .
But Tories from Quebec pushed for changes after Rothmans warned it might have to rethink plans to expand its Quebec City plant - jeopardizing some 330 jobs - if the legislation passed without amendments.
The Quebec Conservative caucus, led by former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier, deemed the legislation too broad.
新华网华盛顿９月２２日电（记者任海军）美国食品和药物管理局２２日宣布，一项禁止生产销售风味香烟的联邦禁令当天开始生效。根据这一禁令，美国境内将严格禁止生产、进口和销售糖果味、水果味及丁香味香烟。
the Conservatives’ attempt to ban the candied smokes, via Bill C-32—the Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act — appears to have been sabotaged. And the culprit is the last place you’d think to look: it’s none other than the people at Health Canada. . . .
Thanks to some subtle language tucked into the bill, C-32 goes far, far beyond what Harper had in mind. Though the prime minister made it clear he wasn’t gunning for the kind of tobacco targeted at adults (just look at the name of the bill), C-32 does exactly that: by including tobacco that has any flavouring whatsoever, it outlaws such brands as Marlboro, Camel, Winston, and Gaulois, all of which use a blend of tobacco so coarse-tasting that sweetener is added to make each lungful just tolerable. Anyone who’s ever smoked one of those brands knows just how un-candy-like the taste is. Clearly banning grown-up foreign smokes — which has the potential to trigger a trade dispute and the loss of hundreds of Canadian tobacco-related jobs — isn’t what the government had planned. And so the question on the minds of many in Ottawa right now is, how did Health Canada let this happen? Those of a more conspiratorial mind are asking whether the bureaucrats at Health Canada — believed by many to be a bastion of anti-tobacco zealotry — tried to pull a fast one, while their political bosses weren’t looking. . . .
While the implications of the C-32 seemed to elude most Canadian politicians as the bill was rushed through the House this summer, U.S. politicians and trade groups pointed out that banning American tobacco, but not Canadian strains, violates NAFTA. Southern Congressmen and Senators — including House Majority Whip, James Clyburn — complained to the Ottawa, and to the State Department, demanding Washington take action to respond to the “unfair assault” on the American industry, threatening the Tories’ record as free-traders.
Certain Canadian groups are just as alarmed. Associations representing Duty Free retailers told a Senate committee recently that they were never once consulted by Health Canada while staff there were crafting this legislation. If they had, the department would have learned, of course, that the U.S. makes sold at the border and airports mean little for Canadian consumption: they’re purchased almost entirely by foreigners on their way back home. Other retailer groups — which frequently include members of immigrant groups that had, till now, been part of the Conservative ethnic outreach effort — are just as livid about the possibility losing some of the world’s biggest cigarette brands, especially since market for them will almost certainly migrate to Canada’s billion-dollar cigarette black market anyway.