http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/country/germany.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_BUS_CRASH?SITE=WSAW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://tobacco.org/news/274049.html A bus fire that killed 20 people in northern Germany may have been caused by a spark from the undercarriage, prosecutors said Wednesday, discounting an initial theory that the blaze was started by a cigarette. Testimony from the 13 survivors of Tuesday night's fire established that it started in a bathroom in the middle of the bus, said local fire chief Bernd Keitel. Passengers told officials they saw smoke seeping from behind the bathroom door. When they opened it, flames quickly engulfed the bus, trapping those seated to the rear. Keitel told reporters he suspected that a spark in the bus's undercarriage may have set light to gases from the bathroom area. He said it was unlikely that the blaze was started by a passenger smoking clandestinely - smoking is illegal on buses in Germany - in the bathroom. He did not offer details. AP Germany Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ik1M8tapulusbyckLOsqk9TaLlhAD948SFMG0 http://tobacco.org/news/274041.html A bus fire that killed 20 people in northern Germany may have been caused by a spark from the undercarriage, prosecutors said Wednesday, discounting an initial theory that the blaze was started by a cigarette. Testimony from the 13 survivors of Tuesday night's fire established that it started in a bathroom in the middle of the bus, said local fire chief Bernd Keitel. Passengers told officials they saw smoke seeping from behind the bathroom door. When they opened it, flames quickly engulfed the bus, trapping those seated to the rear. Keitel told reporters he suspected that a spark in the bus's undercarriage may have set light to gases from the bathroom area. He said it was unlikely that the blaze was started by a passenger smoking clandestinely — smoking is illegal on buses in Germany — in the bathroom. He did not offer details. AP Germany Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/nov/05/20-killed-in-germany-when-fire-breaks-out-on-tour-/ http://tobacco.org/news/274039.html A bus fire that killed 20 people in northern Germany may have been caused by a spark from the undercarriage, prosecutors said Wednesday, discounting an initial theory that the blaze was started by a cigarette. Testimony from the 13 survivors of Tuesday night's fire established that it started in a bathroom in the middle of the bus, said local fire chief Bernd Keitel. Passengers told officials they saw smoke seeping from behind the bathroom door. When they opened it, flames quickly engulfed the bus, trapping those seated to the rear. Keitel told reporters he suspected that a spark in the bus's undercarriage may have set light to gases from the bathroom area. He said it was unlikely that the blaze was started by a passenger smoking clandestinely — smoking is illegal on buses in Germany — in the bathroom. He did not offer details. A police spokesman said survivors told authorities immediately after the blaze that the fire appeared to have broken out after a person smoked a cigarette in the bathroom. Winston-Salem Journal webstaff@journalnow.com Germany Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jMVbNZq-IuGbnCuzueQ9GSA_IvYw http://tobacco.org/news/274023.html BERLIN (AFP) — Twenty people have been killed by a fire on board a bus on a German motorway set off by a passenger smoking in the toilet, police said Wednesday. In Germany's deadliest such incident in 16 years, the coach burst into flames at 8:40 pm . . . Twelve people were injured, police said, several of whom were being treated for serious burns in a nearby hospital. Police said that it was not the result of a crash with another vehicle but that it had been caused by one of the passengers smoking in the bus toilet who failed to extinguish properly his cigarette. When smoke began pouring out of the toilet door another passenger opened it and flames shot out, setting the entire interior of the Mercedes coach in flames in seconds. Agence France Presse Germany Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=abqJIVFiIW_E&refer=germany http://tobacco.org/news/274022.html Twenty people were killed and at least a dozen injured after a bus caught fire yesterday evening on a freeway near the city of Hanover in northern Germany. The bus was returning from a day trip when fire broke out in the vehicle's toilet, leading to an explosion when a passenger opened the door at about 8:40 p.m. local time, before spreading quickly and trapping victims, Hanover police said today. . . . ``We have yet to find out what caused the accident,'' Uwe Schuenemann, Interior Minister of Lower Saxony said in a press conference in Hannover broadcast live on N24. ``It's too early to speculate about the cause.'' Bloomberg News bparkin@bloomberg.net (Brian Parkin and Frances Robinson) Germany Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3766195,00.html http://tobacco.org/news/274021.html Twenty people were killed and 12 injured when a tour bus caught fire on a German freeway near Hanover. It's the country's worst bus accident in over 15 years. . . . After an initial investigation, authorities suspect the fire may have been started by a cigarette in the bathroom. The exact cause, however, had not yet been determined. . . . Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee expressed his deep sympathy to the relatives of the victims. The cause of the accident should be examined "very carefully," adding that it must be examined whether security regulations were observed on the bus and if they needed to be tightened. DW World Germany Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7709616.stm http://tobacco.org/news/274020.html An inferno has killed 20 people and injured 12 others, most of them elderly, aboard a coach on a motorway near Hanover in northern Germany. Police believe the fire started in the toilet and engulfed the coach in seconds. A burning cigarette is thought to have caused it. Some of the victims had difficulty walking and were unable to escape in time, the tour company said. . . . "Someone was smoking secretly in the toilet and that's what started the fire. It happens," said Oliver Pehl, whose mother owns the coach company. BBC Online Germany Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,588553,00.html http://tobacco.org/news/274019.html Twenty elderly people were killed when a fire broke out on a coach as it travelled down the A2 motorway near Hanover in northern Germany on Tuesday night. Police suspect that the fire was caused by a passenger sneaking a cigarette in the bus toilet. Police say that the fire broke out at 8.45 p.m. (CET) on Tuesday evening after the toilet door was opened and flames shot out, quickly engulfing the vehicle. It is thought that some of the elderly passengers who perished had walking disabilities and were unable to escape in time. The driver, who had managed to pull over, and 12 other passengers managed to flee the burning bus. Many were injured and three of them suffering serious burns. Der Spiegel Germany Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/world/europe/05briefs-20DIEINFIREO_BRF.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=cigarette&st=nyt&oref=slogin http://tobacco.org/news/274005.html A tour bus caught fire on a highway near the northern German city of Hannover on Tuesday night, killing 20 people, possibly after a passenger secretly smoked a cigarette, the police said. Survivors told the authorities that the fire broke out in the toilet of the bus while it was on the A2 highway. AP Germany Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_BEER?SITE=CAWOO&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://tobacco.org/news/273967.html The British Beer and Pub Association reported Monday that total beer sales fell about 7 percent in the third quarter - the equivalent of 161 million fewer pints compared with the same period in 2007. Sales of the iconic British pint in pubs have been in decline for years, leading to the closure of thousands of hostelries around the country. Now the association's Quarterly Beer Barometer reveals that the downturn has broadened to supermarket sales. . . . From the sidewalk cafes of Paris to the beer cellars of Berlin, there are signs Europeans are drinking less. . . The flagging economy is not the only factor in the decline. The German statistics agency said other causes were this summer's poor weather, new smoking restrictions and price increases driven by rising energy costs and higher costs for hops and malt. As in other countries, beer consumption in Germany has been falling steadily for more than a decade, a trend that experts have attributed to an increasingly health-conscious public. AP UK Germany Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/oct01_1/a1887 http://tobacco.org/news/272640.html The tobacco industry in Germany, working with the popular German daily newspaper Bild, stopped the airline Lufthansa from banning smoking on its domestic flights in the early 1990s, an analysis of internal tobacco industry documents shows. The tobacco company Philip Morris has had to publish thousands of internal documents on the internet as a consequence of a US court sentence against it in 1998. A paper in a German public health journal has used the documents to shed light on the tobacco industry’s successful lobbying strategies in Germany (Gesundheitswesen 2008;70:315-24, doi:10.1055/s-2008-1078752). The documents also show how the German Association of the Cigarette Industry (Verband der Cigarettenindustrie) managed to prevent a ban on tobacco advertising, to persuade the German government to bring action against certain EU guidelines, to keep cigarette vending machines accessible to children, and to prevent the introduction of higher taxes on tobacco products. They also show how scientists and doctors acted as expert witnesses against the dangers to health of tobacco. "However," said Martina Pötschke-Langer, one of the authors of the paper and head of the World Health Organization Collaboration Centre for Tobacco Control at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, "the campaign against Lufthansa’s non-smoking flights appears to be especially vicious, since pressure was applied to the government as well as to public opinion via the mass media." In 1989 Lufthansa tried to introduce non-smoking domestic flights but was unsuccessful until 1996. British Medical Journal Germany Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/sep19_2/a1727?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=smoking&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=20&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT http://tobacco.org/news/272639.html Plans being drawn up by the German Ministry of Health to reduce alcohol and tobacco use have triggered strong protests from industry groups and politicians, with some of the sharpest criticism coming from the Bavarian health minister. Proposals were debated at a hearing on 15 September in Berlin. the hearing was closed to the public and press but was attended by representatives of about 30 groups, including representatives from the German Medical Association (Bundesärztekammer), public health insurers, the public pension system, alcohol and tobacco industries, advertisers, sports associations, and addiction prevention groups. Sabine Bätzing, Germany’s federal drug commissioner based in the health ministry and the plan’s driving force, told the BMJ that it was needed to reduce German alcohol and tobacco consumption, which is among the highest in Europe. "We have an increasing consumption, especially with young people," she said, adding that annual consumption of beer, wine, and spirits in Germany is 10 l of pure alcohol per person. "That is a lot," she said. Her long term goal would be to reduce that to 8 l. British Medical Journal Germany Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/337/oct15_1/a2085 http://tobacco.org/news/272593.html The work of several leading German medical scientists has been sponsored by the International Philip Morris Research Foundation. Johannes Spatz, public health specialist and antitobacco activist in Berlin, made the discovery in a search of the internet archive of the tobacco company Philip Morris. An official question by the Green Party in the Berlin Senate has publicly highlighted that the cardiologist Eckart Fleck, from the Berlin Heart Centre, had received a grant of {euro}937 000 (£744 000; $1.28m) in 2003 to sponsor his work . . . Professor Fleck is known for publicly warning of the dangers of smoking for the heart. He denies any commercial links with the tobacco industry . . . Critics such as Dr Spatz agree that there was no direct dependence, but say that scientists such as Professor Fleck were ignorant about the underlying strategy of the tobacco industry to keep close links with relevant research topics and stay in touch with opinion leaders in the discipline. Therefore, they say, all research institutions and organisations in Germany should follow the example of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg and other medical societies that abstain from receiving tobacco industry grants. Apart from Professor Fleck, 16 other German scientists were found . . . Their names are listed in an internal document in the extensive internet archive of Philip Morris. . . . The thoracic surgeon Thomas Kyriss, from Stuttgart, who has been involved in the analysis of the Philip Morris documents, says that in the late 90s the tobacco industry changed from direct funding of pro-tobacco research projects to a more sophisticated policy of supporting high powered research of relevant projects of the future. Dr Kyriss points towards a publication on the research funding strategy by the US public health specialist Norbert Hirschhorn in Tobacco Control (2001;10:247-252). British Medical Journal Germany Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/10/05/2008-10-05_mayor_bloomberg_touts_antismoking_plan_i.html http://tobacco.org/news/272032.html BERLIN - Drinking beats smoking, Mayor Bloomberg said today at a beer-soaked street fair in the heart of Germany's capital. After scooping up an anti-smoking award, the mayor bragged that New Yorkers who smoke are now ashamed to huddle outside bars with cigarettes, while non-smokers buy more food and drinks inside. "It turns out that it is economically good for the bar and restaurant business," Bloomberg said. "It's certainly good for everybody except the funeral parlors." The mayor was in Berlin to accept an award from the European Lung Foundation for his anti-smoking crusade. . . . Bloomberg acknowledged that he used to smoke two decades ago and said humiliation helped him kick the habit. "Friends of mine sort of looked down on me. It was embarrassing that I was doing something that can only be described as self-destructive and not very smart," the mayor said. "It's relatively easy to stop, and once you stop, you're going to feel so much superior to those who do smoke that there's instant gratification." . . . He scolded medical professionals who still smoke as setting a horrible example to their patients. "Every doctor who smokes sets an example that undermines the best public health anti-smoking campaign," he said. "He or she sends the message - after all, how bad can smoking really be?" New York Daily News Germany Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GERMANY_ELECTION?SITE=WSAW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://tobacco.org/news/271990.html CSU leader Erwin Huber lamented that his party had enjoyed "no tail wind from federal politics" - unlike in 2003, when his party was in opposition to an unpopular center-left government in Berlin. The CSU helped build Bavaria into a wealthy high-tech center, but has suffered in recent years from unpopular school reforms, a messy change of leadership, a clumsily introduced smoking ban, losses at state-owned bank BayernLB, and fatigue over its long dominance. AP Germany Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT