Fake news: is smoking really increasing in Australia?

Author:  Simon Chapman AO This blog post originally appeared on Doctor Portal and is published here with permission. ON 14 August, 2017, The Australian newspaper ran a story guaranteed to go viral. The headline screamed: “More smokers lighting up, despite the costs”. The journalist, Adam Creighton, who has, grotesquely, written about tobacco control being like […]

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Is Philip Morris’ claim it wants to phase out conventional cigarettes credible?

In recent months, Philip Morris International has been claiming it wants to lead the push to a smoke free world and  wants to work with governments towards the phase out of conventional cigarettes. The claims have been met with scepticism, but do they stand up to scrutiny? At an investor day held in late September 2016, […]

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E-cigarettes and children: advocates walking on both sides of the street?

Post written by Prof Simon Chapman AO Follow Simon on Twitter: @simonchapman6 —- In a 2014 open letter to the WHO’s director general Margaret Chan signed by 53 researchers, it was argued “Controls on [ecigarette] advertising to nonsmokers, and particularly to young people are certainly justified, but a total ban would have many negative effects, […]

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WHO report on regulation of e-cigarettes and similar products

The following content is courtesy of the WHO. The report on “Electronic nicotine delivery systems” (ENDS), of which electronic cigarettes are the most common prototype, is on the agenda of the 6th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), being held 13-18 October 2014, in Moscow. E-cigarettes […]

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E-cigarettes and the marketing push that surprised everyone

The e-cigarette debate rages on over at the BMJ… Martin McKee writes  how ” the more attention policy makers give to the aggressive marketing of e-cigarettes in their own countries, the more they conclude that the downsides far exceed any benefits.” Naturally, for such a hot topic, opposing views are quick to materialise. Clive Bates […]

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Tobacco harm reduction and e-cigarettes: setting a unified research agenda

  Marisa de Andrade & Gerard Hastings Institute for Social Marketing, University of Stirling marisa.deandrade1@stir.ac.uk Recent discussions about an endgame for tobacco have built on a sense that we in the tobacco control (TC) movement know where we are going. The consistent application of evidence based strategies, from adbans to tax increases, was, it seemed, […]

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The marketing of e-cigarettes: a UK snapshot

Marisa de Andrade & Gerard Hastings Institute for Social Marketing; University of Stirling marisa.deandrade1@stir.ac.uk Editor’s note: The United Kingdom’s health regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is currently considering how to regulate ecigarettes. Given that marketing of these e-cigarettes is of particular concern, Marisa de Andrade and Gerard Hastings were commissioned by […]

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