Project Cerberus: tobacco industry strategy to create an alternative to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Between 1999 and 2001, British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, and Japan Tobacco International executed Project Cerberus to develop a global voluntary regulatory regime as an alternative to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). They aimed to develop a global voluntary regulatory code to be overseen by an independent audit body and to focus attention on youth smoking prevention. The International Tobacco Products Marketing Standards announced in September 2001, however, did not have the independent audit body.

Brief secondhand smoke exposure depresses endothelial progenitor cells activity and endothelial function: sustained vascular injury and blunted nitric oxide production.

Objectives: This study sought to analyze the effects of acute secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure on the number and function of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) over 24 h.

Background: Secondhand smoke increases the risk of vascular disease and is a major public health concern, but the mechanism(s) of action are not fully understood.

Methods: Healthy nonsmokers (age SEM 30.

Externalities in the Workplace: A Response to a Rejoinder to a Response to a Response to a Paper.

Professor Henderson has simply repeated the same two points he made in his earlier critique (Henderson 2007) of our article "Smoke-free Ordinances Increase Restaurant Profit and Value" (Alamar and Glantz 2004). He argues 1.) that secondhand smoke is not an externality, therefore no government intervention is required to protect workers and customers in restaurants and bars, and 2.

Smokefree environments in Latin America: on the road to real change?

Latin American countries are experiencing an increasing burden of tobacco-related diseases. Smoke free policies are cost-effective interventions to control both exposure of nonsmokers to the toxic chemicals in secondhand tobacco smoke and to reduce the prevalence of smoking and its consequent morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has created momentum in Latin America to implement meaningful tobacco control policies.

Smoking in movies and increased smoking among young adults.

Objective: This study assessed whether smoking in the movies was associated with smoking in young adults.

Methods: A national web-enabled cross-sectional survey of 1528 young adults, aged 18-25, was performed between September and November 2005. Logistic regression and path analysis using probit regression were used to assess relationships between exposure to smoking in the movies and smoking behavior.

Tobacco industry efforts undermining evidence linking secondhand smoke with cardiovascular disease.

Background: The scientific consensus that secondhand smoke (SHS) increases cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk by 30% is based on epidemiological and biological evidence. The tobacco industry has contested this evidence that SHS causes CVD, but how and why they have done it has not been described.

Methods And Results: About 50 million pages of tobacco industry documents were searched using general keywords and names of industry consultants and scientists.

"Accommodating" smoke-free policies: tobacco industry's Courtesy of Choice programme in Latin America.

Objective: To understand the implementation and effects of the Courtesy of Choice programme designed to "accommodate" smokers as an alternative to smoke-free policies developed by Philip Morris International (PMI) and supported by RJ Reynolds (RJR) and British American Tobacco (BAT) since the mid-1990s in Latin America.

Methods: Analysis of internal tobacco industry documents, BAT "social reports", news reports and tobacco control legislation.

Results: Since the mid-1990s, PMI, BAT and RJR promoted Accommodation Programs to maintain the social acceptability of smoking.

Endotoxins in tobacco smoke: shifting tobacco industry positions.

In the 1980s, the tobacco industry started a campaign to divert attention away from secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS) as a major source of indoor air pollution in workplaces by highlighting the roles of other indoor air pollutants. The industry, working through "third parties," highlighted endotoxins, naturally occurring substances that cause numerous inflammatory reactions in humans, as an alternative explanation to SHS as causing indoor air problems. In 1995, Hasday and colleagues were the first to present findings that cigarette smoke contains significant quantities of endotoxins.

Implications of the federal court order banning the terms "light" and "mild": what difference could it make?

Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler found that the major American tobacco companies violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, defrauding the public by deceptively marketing "light" cigarettes. Judge Kessler's ruling prohibits the defendant tobacco companies from implying health benefits through using misleading terms such as "light", "mild" or "low-tar", or through other indirect means. This ruling could be interpreted narrowly as simply prohibiting certain words, or could be interpreted broadly as prohibiting implying health benefits by any other means, including colour, numbers or images.

Global leaf companies control the tobacco market in Malawi.

Objective: To examine the influence of US-based tobacco leaf-buying companies, Universal Corporation and Alliance One International, on Malawi's economy and trade policy in 2000-6.

Design: Analyses of ethnographic data and tobacco industry documents.

Results: Universal Corporation and Alliance One International, through their subsidiary companies Limbe Leaf and Alliance One, respectively, in Malawi, control policy-making advisory groups and operate a tobacco cartel to influence Malawi's economic and trade sectors.

Attempts to undermine tobacco control: tobacco industry "youth smoking prevention" programs to undermine meaningful tobacco control in Latin America.

We sought to understand how the tobacco industry uses "youth smoking prevention" programs in Latin America. We analyzed tobacco industry documents, so-called "social reports," media reports, and material provided by Latin American public health advocates. Since the early 1990s, multinational tobacco companies have promoted "youth smoking prevention" programs as part of their "Corporate Social Responsibility" campaigns.

Effect of smoke-free laws on bar value and profits.

The tobacco industry has claimed that smoke-free bar laws caused bar revenues to decline by 30%. After we controlled for economic variables, we found that bars located in areas with smoke-free laws sold for prices that were comparable to prices for similar bars in areas with no smoking restrictions. Other studies have reported that sales did not decline, and we also found that neither price nor sales declined.

The rise and fall of tobacco control media campaigns, 1967 2006.

Extensive research has demonstrated that public education through media campaigns is an effective means to reduce smoking prevalence and tobacco consumption. Aggressive media campaigns that confront the tobacco industry's deceptive practices are most effective and are therefore a prime target for attack. The tobacco industry has attacked public tobacco control media campaigns since 1967, when the first public tobacco control media advertisements ran.

The effect of support for action against the tobacco industry on smoking among young adults.

Objectives: We investigated associations between tobacco industry denormalization attitudes and the smoking behavior of young adults (aged 18 to 29 years).

Methods: We analyzed data from 9455 young adults in the 2002 California Tobacco Survey.

Results: The data showed that 27.

Old ways, new means: tobacco industry funding of academic and private sector scientists since the Master Settlement Agreement.

When, as a condition of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) in 1998, US tobacco companies disbanded the Council for Tobacco Research and the Center for Indoor Air Research, they lost a vital connection to scientists in academia and the private sector. The aim of this paper was to investigate two new research projects funded by US tobacco companies by analysis of internal tobacco industry documents now available at the University of California San Francisco (San Francisco, California, USA) Legacy tobacco documents library, other websites and the open scientific literature. Since the MSA, individual US tobacco companies have replaced their industry-wide collaborative granting organisations with new, individual research programmes.

Cardiovascular effects of second-hand smoke help explain the benefits of smoke-free legislation on heart disease burden.

Second-hand smoke (SHS) increases the risk of heart disease by approximately 30% in nonsmokers. Recent evidence from cities that have implemented 100% smoke-free laws has shown that myocardial infarction admissions rapidly declined after law implementation. This decline is, in part, explained by the acute and substantial cardiovascular effects of SHS, many of which are rapid and nearly as large as smoking.

The tobacco industry's role in the 16 Cities Study of secondhand tobacco smoke: do the data support the stated conclusions?

Background: Since 1996, the tobacco industry has used the 16 Cities Study conclusions that workplace secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS) exposures are lower than home exposures to argue that workplace and other smoking restrictions are unnecessary.

Objectives: Our goal was to determine the origins and objectives of the 16 Cities Study through analysis of internal tobacco industry documents and regulatory agency and court records, and to evaluate the validity of the study's conclusions.

Results: The tobacco industry's purpose in conducting the 16 Cities Study was to develop data showing that workplace SHS exposures were negligible, using these data to stop smoking restrictions by the U.

The US Public Health Service "treating tobacco use and dependence clinical practice guidelines" as a legal standard of care.

Background: The important factors in evaluating the role of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) in medical malpractice litigation have been discussed for several years, but have focused on broad policy implications rather than on a concrete example of how an actual guideline might be evaluated. There are four items that need to be considered in negligence torts: legal duty, a breach of that duty, causal relationship between breach and injury, and damages.

Objective: To identify the arguments related to legal duty.

Sidestream cigarette smoke toxicity increases with aging and exposure duration.

Objectives: To determine the effects of aging on the toxicity of sidestream tobacco smoke, the complex chemical mixture that enters the air from the lit end of burning cigarettes and constitutes the vast bulk of secondhand smoke.

Design: Statistical analysis of data from controlled experimental exposures of Sprague Dawley rats to fresh and aged (for more than 30 minutes) sidestream smoke for up to 90 days followed by histological sectioning of the respiratory epithelium. The data were obtained from a series of experiments conducted at Philip Morris' formerly secret INBIFO (Institut für Biologische Forschung) laboratory in Germany.

Avoiding "truth": tobacco industry promotion of life skills training.

Purpose: To understand why and how two tobacco companies have been promoting the Life Skills Training program (LST), a school-based drug prevention program recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce youth smoking.

Methods: We analyzed internal tobacco industry documents available online as of October 2005. Initial searches were conducted using the keywords "life skills training," "LST," and "positive youth development.

Televised movie trailers: undermining restrictions on advertising tobacco to youth.

Objective: To determine the proportion of televised movie trailers that included images of tobacco use during 1 year and the extent of youth exposure to those trailers.

Design: Content analysis combined with Nielsen data measuring media exposure. All movie trailers (N = 216) shown on television from August 1, 2001, through July 31, 2002.