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81-Year-Old Woman Dies In Fire 

Norma Dignin, 81, died from a fire that tore through her condominium early Wednesday morning.

Oak Creek police said the fire started around 2:30 a.m. . . .

"At this point, it looks like the fire was accidentally started, possibly smoking-related.

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UPDATE: BAT Teams Up With Italian Retail Group In ETI Bid 

British American Tobacco PLC has teamed up with Italy's retailers group Confcommercio in a bid to increase its chances in a EUR1.4 billion auction to buy state-owned tobacco company Ente Tabacchi Italiano SpA, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday.

"We notified (government adviser) Goldman Sachs of the agreement yesterday," the source said. Consulting firm Franco Bernabe Group has also joined BAT, the person said.

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WHO Anti-Smoking Campaign to Target Asian Film, Fashion Industries 

The World Health Organization plans to use this Saturday's "World No Tobacco Day" to call for an end to the film and fashion industries' promotion of hazardous tobacco products. In Asia, movies are a major venue for tobacco advertising.

The WHO is urging filmmakers to stop promoting the use of tobacco products - products that the world body says kill half of all regular users. . .

WHO policy advisor on tobacco issues, Judith Mackay, says that in Asia and elsewhere, on-screen smoking is often part of a deliberate advertising campaign.

She says that such advertising, known as "product placement" is on the rise.

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CANCER THE BIGGEST KILLER 

Cancer is the biggest killer in England and Wales last year, according to official new figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said 26% of deaths in 2002 were from the disease.

The next biggest cause of death was coronary heart disease (19%), followed by respiratory disease (13%) and stroke (11%).

The remaining 31% of deaths were from a variety of causes, such as accidents and infectious diseases.

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Minister of Health Marks World No Tobacco Day With New Funding for Mass Media Projects 

The federal Minister of Health, Anne McLellan, today marked World No Tobacco Day by attending a special awards ceremony for over 400 Ottawa high school students who participated in a contest to develop tobacco control mass media projects.

In her remarks to the students, Minister McLellan announced that Health Canada will invest a further $2M in new mass media contribution funding this year. This funding builds on the approximately $5 million that was allocated in 2002-2003. Through these regional mass media initiatives, the Tobacco Control Programme supports the provinces and territories, as well as key national and regional non-governmental organizations in implementing mass media campaigns to support all aspects of the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy.

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• Pubs failing to tackle smoking 

Less than half the pubs and bars in England and Wales are complying with a voluntary code to reduce customers' exposure to tobacco smoke, a report reveals.

The hospitality industry introduced the code, called the Public Places Charter in 1999.

It aims to encourage bars and restaurants to inform potential customers about their smoking policy by placing signs outside the premises and having a written policy available.

However, an independent report, commissioned by the Department of Health and trade groups, shows that just 43% are doing this.

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Giving up smoking reduces chances of heart attack 

Stating that chances of a heart attack was reduced by almost 50 per cent within 24 hours after one quits smoking, the Delhi Medical Association on Thursday sought tough laws to prevent smoking in public places and advertisements promoting it on television.

Smoking doubled the risk of heart attack and a smoker heart patient died 15 years earlier than a non-smoker heart patient, Dr Anil Bansal, DMA president, told reporters on the eve of the 'World No Tobacco Day' on May 31.

Stating that most deaths in India occurred due to cancer, heart attack or paralysis, Bansal said that all of the three diseases to a large extent were tobacco-related. Tobacco cessation was the only answer in making a healthy society, he added.

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Barb Tarbox award honours smoking foes 

Anti-smoking crusaders who concentrate on getting through to kids have won three of the first Barb Tarbox Awards of Excellence in Tobacco Reduction.

The awards, established by the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, were distributed Wednesday as part of a celebration of World No Tobacco Day.

Tarbox garnered national acclaim for her anti-smoking crusade before succumbing to lung cancer on May 18. She had been a smoker for 30 years.

Business, non-profit organization, individual and youth scholarship awards were presented.

Tanya Josephy, 17, a Calgary Grade 12 student, won the $2,500 youth scholarship for her involvement in the Women's Initiative in Tobacco organization. The group of teenage girls is dedicated to preventing other girls from smoking.

"I'm very honoured to win this," said Josephy. "Barb is an inspiration, she's a hero in our times.

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Page Six 

SMOKE IS IN

MAYOR Bloomberg wouldn't like the latest trend in party planning. Graydon Carter started it years ago when he had cigarettes, ashtrays and matches placed on tables at Morton's for Vanity Fair's Oscar party. Last Saturday, Jason Binn had not one, but two cigarette girls at his Southampton mansion with fancy Nat Sherman cigarettes. Among those passing up the trays of tobacco were Binn's lovely fiancee Haley Lieberman, Brett Ratner, Jane Rosenthal, Lizzie Grubman and ex-boyfriend Andrew Sasson (who eyed each other warily), Russell Simmons, Rick and Kathy Hilton, and new parents Chris Cuomo and Cristina Greeven.

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Merger of Rudy-Judi, But Best Man Andrew Carries the Big Day 

Even the cigars were special—Zino Platinums, aged four to five years apiece and provided by ad man and tobacco entrepreneur Peter Arnell. . .

It was around that time that Mr. Arnell’s gift to Mr. Giuliani—a humidor containing 400 Zino Platinum series cigars, a co-venture of the ad man, Interscope Records chief Steve Stoute and Davidoff—was broken out, and the smell of cigar smoke wafting across the tented lawn at Gracie Mansion reminded those present that times had changed indeed.

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TALLMO: Consensus and canaries: About medical science and its loyalties 

The TIRC sponsored scientists who wrote the "right" kind of articles. Up to 1961 there had been 197 such articles published by TIRC funded scientists, according to the head of research at the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co, Alan Rodgman, who wrote about this in a confidential internal memo 1962.[86]

The psychologist H.J. Eysenck admitted in his autobiography that he had accepted money from the tobacco industry.[87] In the British Medical Journal he published an article in 1960, presenting his ideas about lung cancer and that this disease was not due to smoking - but to personality.[88]

In 1969 The New York Times refused to publish tobacco ads, unless they included a health warning together with figures showing nicotine content etc. This made the American Tobacco Company quite irate, and on September 4th they published a whole-page ad titled "Why we're dropping the New York Times", where they explained why they wouldn't buy ad space anymore:

Sure there are statistics associating lung cancer and cigarettes. There are statistics associating lung cancer with divorce, and even with lack of sleep. But no scientist has produced clinical or biological proof that cigarettes cause the diseases they are accused of causing. After 15 years of trying, nobody has induced lung cancer in animals with cigarette smoke.[89]

A number of lab studies had been done however, and within the business they discussed confidentially how difficult it would be to bring about some kind of safe tobacco "because known carcinogens are produced from such a wide variety of organic materials during the process of pyrolysis."[90]

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Peel delays full hospitality smoking ban to 2010 

Restaurants, bars and bingo halls in Peel Region have until June 1, 2010, to become smoke-free under a new bylaw approved by regional council.

Until that date, such establishments may continue to use designated rooms that are enclosed and separately ventilated for patrons who wish to smoke, and to install them any time up to the day the smoking ban takes effect, council decided in an 11-7 vote Thursday.

Under heavy lobbying from the hospitality industry and bingo hall operators and their affiliated charities, council backed off passing a tougher bylaw proposed by medical health officer Dr. David McKeown.

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Comments from the trade on the success of the Smoking Charter 

KOZLOWSKI: Three soliloquies on tobacco industry funding of university research 

New York law may change after smoking ban backlash 

The ban on smoking in New York city workplaces, introduced at the end of March, has proved unpopular with bar owners and customers who feel it goes too far.

With the workplace ban due to be extended across New York state from July 24, city and state politicians hope they can defuse a voter backlash by toning down the impact of the law on bars and restaurants.

New York state lawmakers are considering a plan that would allow bars and restaurants to build separate smoking rooms. In New York city, there is also a proposal to give smaller businesses, operated by their owners, the choice to allow smoking.

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