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Risk of bladder cancer for smokers has increased since the mid-1990s, with a risk progressively increasing to a level five times higher among current smokers in New Hampshire than that among nonsmokers in 2001-2004, according to a new study published online November 16 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Furthermore, researchers found that among individuals who smoked the same total number of cigarettes over their lifetime, smoking fewer cigarettes per day for more years may be more harmful than smoking more cigarettes per day for fewer years.
It is well known that cigarette smoking causes bladder cancer, but the influence of various parameters of smoking history, including trends in risk over time, is unclear.
Dalsu Baris, M.D., Ph.D., of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, in Bethesda, Md., and her colleagues from NCI, Dartmouth Medical School, and the departments of health for the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, examined bladder cancer risk in relation to smoking practices based on data from a large, population-based case-control study conducted in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont from 2001 to 2004.
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Participating in team sports is associated with a reduced likelihood of youths becoming established smokers, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, exposure to movie smoking appears to be associated with an increased risk of established smoking in both team sport participants and nonparticipants.
Past studies suggest that there is a direct association between movie smoking exposure and youth smoking initiation, with 30 percent to 50 percent of adolescents' smoking initiation attributed to movie smoking exposure, according to background information in the article. "Movie smoking exposure appears to increase the risk of smoking initiation by enhancing adolescents' perceived benefits of smoking and making them more susceptible to peer influences," the authors write.
Anna M. Adachi-Mejia, Ph.D., of Hood Center for Children and Families, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, N.H., and colleagues analyzed data from school- and telephone-based surveys
At Champlain Cable Corp., the employee smoking room was closed down last fall, sending smokers outside. Employees were offered help to quit smoking.
What the Colchester cable manufacturer did voluntarily could soon be required throughout Vermont at the dwindling number of companies with indoor smoking areas. Legislation that would ban indoor smoking lounges -- shutting down smokers' last refuge in the workplace -- is likely headed for law.
Today, the House passed a bill that cleared the Senate earlier this year. Gov. Jim Douglas said of the bill, "I guess I'm amenable to that."
"There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke," said Rep. Patsy French, D-Randolph, told fellow House members. "Passing smoke-free workplace legislation saves lives and prevents serious illness while saving Vermont money."
Many employers locked the door on smoking lounges years ago.
The Vermont House has passed a bill that would snuff out all smoking in the workplace.
The state banned smoking on the job in 1987 except in designated areas like special smoking rooms. But advocates say those rooms are unfair to employees who don't puff because they are still exposed to small amounts of second-hand smoke.
Ten years after the November 1998 state tobacco settlement, we find that most of the New England states have failed to keep their promise to use a significant portion of the settlement funds to reduce tobacco’s terrible toll on America’s children, families and communities.
Health advocates said Monday that New England states have failed to deliver on a pledge to use settlement money from tobacco companies to pay for prevention programs, with most states funding programs at just one fifth of recommended levels.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids released a report detailing how New England states will spend only 2.3 percent of the $1.8 billion in tobacco settlement and tax revenue on tobacco prevention programs this year when these programs save both lives and money by containing health care costs by preventing tobacco-related illness.
"We know for a fact that these programs save lives and reduce health care costs," said Don Gudaitis, CEO of the American Cancer Society's New England Division. "As more and more Americans face a threat of lack of access to health care and lack of access to health insurance, underfunding the most proven way to reduce health care costs is all the more intolerable."
Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island are funding tobacco prevention programs at less than 20 percent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendations, according to the report.
The report also said Maine and Vermont are the only New England states funding tobacco prevention at half the CDC's recommended levels.
R.J. Reynolds Inc. promoted its Eclipse cigarette as safer than other brands without the science to back up the claim as part of a strategy to keep people hooked on smoking, a lawyer for the state said Wednesday.
"Reynolds believed that Eclipse, if successful, would reduce the number of eventual quitters," attorney Barney Brannen told Chittenden Superior Court Judge Dennis Pearson. Brannen said there was no proof that Eclipse was safer than other cigarettes.
Robert Shaughnessy, a lawyer representing R.J. Reynolds, said the company had not misled anyone about its claims about Eclipse, a cigarette the firm came up with a decade ago that warms rather than burns its tobacco component.
"The only claim we made about the Eclipse product is that it has less inherent risk from its own use than other products in the same class," Shaughnessy said.
The two lawyers' remarks came during closing arguments in a consumer fraud action filed by the Vermont Attorney General's Office seeking to have Pearson issue a court injunction to stop the R.J. Reynolds' advertising campaign for Eclipse.
This case could have a national impact, not only for Eclipse, but because it could put meat on the bones in terms of what the tobacco industry can and cannot say about its so-called reduced risk products.Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, on VT's lawsuit against RJR for its health-related Eclipse ads.
A lawyer for the state of Vermont says cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds promoted the company's Eclipse cigarettes as safer even though it couldn't validate the claim.
The state, which is suing the cigarette maker, contends that Reynolds pushed the Eclipse believing it could help reduce the number of smokers who quit.
R.J. Reynolds lawyer Robert Shaughnessy says the company didn't mislead anyone
A bill hitting the floor of the Vermont Senate next week would completely ban cigarette use and other forms of smoking at all workplaces across the state.
Vermont was one of the first states to begin restricting secondhand smoke at workplaces when it passed the Smokefree Workplace Act in 1987 - prohibiting the use of tobacco and other smoking products under most circumstances.
But tobacco-free advocates say that law has loopholes that do allow workplace smoking under some circumstances. The new bill, which is expected to easily find support in the Vermont Senate, would close those loopholes.
Tina Zuk, the coordinator of the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont, said current state law allows workplaces to have indoor smoking rooms under specific conditions. She said this is unfair for nonsmoking workers, who expect that they would not be exposed to secondhand smoke while on the job.
In this season of new resolutions, VPR explores the issue of smoking in Vermont. Ten years ago a landmark legal settlement with the tobacco industry boosted the campaign to reduce smoking. And great strides have been made. But today, more than one in six adults in Vermont still smokes.
In our week-long series, Vermont Quits, VPR's Neal Charnoff talks with experts about why it's so hard to quit and what helps. We'll also hear from smokers about life before and after kicking the habit.
Tune in beginning Monday, January 12th, at 5:30pm during All Things Considered
Part One: Who still smokes and why it's so hard to quit
Part Two: Quitting - What Helps?
Part Three: Starting & Stopping
Part Four: The Tobacco Settlement & the Funds
Part Five: A Smoker's Reflections
After a two-month break, trial resumes today in a lawsuit in which the state of Vermont charges that R.J. Reynolds claimed a new cigarette was safer for smokers without scientific data to back the claim.
Vermont, which is suing the tobacco company for itself and 35 other states, has taken aim at Reynolds' marketing statements that say its Eclipse cigarettes, which heat rather than burn tobacco, are safer than regular cigarettes.
The trial on claims by the state of Vermont that R.J. Reynolds Co. misled consumers about the health risks of smoking a new kind of cigarette resumes Monday at Chittenden Superior Court in Burlington after a two-month hiatus.
The state, which is arguing the case on behalf of 36 states, contends that Reynolds has marketed Eclipse, a cigarette that heats rather than burns tobacco, as safer than conventional cigarettes despite having no scientific evidence to back its advertising claims.
Judge Dennis Pearson presided over 20 days of testimony in the case in October and, in a ruling late last month, said he will allow Reynolds five more days to wrap up its defense against the state's claims.
Based on recent court filings, Reynolds lawyers intend to focus part of this week's testimony on an 11-year-old statement by the Attorney General's Office that criticized the company for not doing more to promote Premier, another "safer" cigarette it had developed.
BURLINGTON, Vt.
An expert on smoking and health said Wednesday that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. relied on suspect data to support its claim that smokers of its Eclipse cigarettes may face less risk.
Testifying in a civil lawsuit, Dr. David Burns, a pulmonologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego's medical school, said that too few people participated in studies of the cigarette and that they didn't use it long enough for scientists to draw meaningful conclusions about whether it is safer than other brands.
The state of Vermont is suing Reynolds over what it says were misleading claims that the Eclipse may carry less risk of cancer and other health ailments. . . .
"We believe the claims we have made regarding the product have been supported by credible and reliable scientific data," said Thomas McKim, the vice president and deputy general counsel, in an interview outside the Chittenden County Superior Court courtroom.
A lawyer for tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds Co. told a Vermont judge Monday that Vermont does not want consumers to know about a new cigarette that might pose less of a health risk to smokers than conventional cigarettes.
"The state does not want the consumer to know the truth about Eclipse," Reynolds lawyer Robert Shaughnessy told Judge Dennis Pearson. "It wants smokers to have only two choices: quit or die. ... Reynolds is here today because it believes smokers should have another choice."
Shaughnessy made the remark during opening arguments in the trial at Chittenden Superior Court in Burlington on claims by the state that Reynolds engaged in deceptive advertising about the reduced risk of smoking Eclipse.
"There is no evidence that shows that smokers who switch to Eclipse actually develop less lung cancer, actually develop less chronic bronchitis, actually develop less emphysema," lawyer Barney Brannen, representing the state, told Pearson. . . .
Sorrell, who attended Monday's court session, said outside the courtroom afterward that the Premier reference was among a number of claims made during the tobacco litigation negotiations. He said R.J. Reynolds doesn't like it when they come under attack.
"These guys want everyone to think Mother Teresa is the CEO of R.J. Reynolds," Sorrell said.
These guys want everyone to think Mother Teresa is the CEO of R.J. Reynolds.Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, on RJR lawyers in the state's Eclipse case.
A lawsuit challenging claims by tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds that its Eclipse cigarette is healthier to smoke than the average cigarette can go forward, a Vermont judge has ruled.
Chittenden Superior Court Judge Dennis Pearson, in an 18-page ruling, denied R.J. Reynolds' request to dismiss outright the case filed by the Vermont Attorney General's Office on behalf of Vermont and 35 other states.
"The state is generally entitled to present its case on the evidence ... with regard to the existence (or not) of reasonable substantiation supporting R.J Reynolds's health claims regarding Eclipse," Pearson wrote in his Aug. 19 decision.
Pearson also rejected all but one of nine other pre-trial motions filed by R.J. Reynolds regarding what evidence and witnesses could be used at the trial, scheduled to begin Oct. 5.
This case is novel because no one has ever said how much scientific evidence is needed to prove a reduced risk to human health.VT assistant attorney general Julie Brill, on the state's challenge to RJR's Eclipse ad claims.