Update from Action to Quit

Reposted at http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,

Last week we sent out a fact sheet on thirdhand smoke. A study reveals some new information on the harmful effects of thirdhand smoke. Read more HERE.

Most tobacco users make several quit attempts before they are successful. The American Lung Association received a grant from WellPoint Inc. to support their Quitter in You program. The campaign’s intention is to empower people trying to quit smoking by acknowledging that past quit attempts are not failures, but are normal and necessary steps along the way to quitting for good. A new website - http://www.quitterinyou.org/ - is one of the many features of the program.  Read more HERE.   

Can intervention for adult tobacco dependence be done in pediatric practices? A study to be published in the July 2013 issue of Pediatrics considers this question. The study is also detailed in this news story.

Yesterday Partnership for Prevention and nine other organizations submitted a joint public comment to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The comment urges CMS to include the four Joint Commission tobacco measures as a smoking cessation set in the 2013 Proposed Rule on Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS). If the tobacco measures are incorporated in the IPPS it would create a financial incentive for hospitals to report on them, extending higher annual payment rates to those hospitals that do so. As hospitals improve their performance, more inpatients will receive cost-effective tobacco cessation services and many will quit their tobacco use.

Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the marketing of two new tobacco products through the substantial equivalence (SE) pathway, and denied the marketing of four others. Additionally, the Agency announced the refusal to accept 20 “Exemption from SE” requests and the withdrawal of 136 SE reports by industry sponsors. Click HERE for more information.

Here is a new e-cigarette clinical trial out of Italy. It concluded, “In smokers not intending to quit, the use of e-cigarettes, with or without nicotine, decreased cigarette consumption and elicited enduring tobacco abstinence without causing significant side effects”.

Super Smokey and aging avatars.

Presented by Sandhia Rajan, ActionToQuit Program Manager