[Intl-tobacco] European News Bulletin - EU0019 - 15 May 2000 (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

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!#  GLOBALink Tobacco - Weekly European News Bulletin
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EUROPEAN BULLETIN     EU0019 =AD 15 May 2000

Headlines

FINLAND: WHO study on smoking amongst youngsters
FRANCE: Hospital patients to be given smoking cessation help
FRANCE / ITALY: Cigarette caused tunnel fire
FRANCE/SPAIN:  Altadis sheds 168 jobs
HUNGARY: Smoke-free caf=E9 chain expands
IRELAND: Smoky pubs: health danger to staff spurs plan for curbs
NORWAY: Doctors to receive anti-smoke training
UNITED KINGDOM:  =A35,000 payout for boy whose mother had to work in a smok=
y office
UZBEKISTAN:  BAT triples production

Full Text

FINLAND: WHO study on smoking amongst youngsters

According to a report by WHO, smoking amongst boys under the age of 15 has
decreased in Finland to the average level in Europe. In 1986, every third
Finnish boy under the age of 15 smoked, while in 1998, only every fifth
boy in the age group smoked. For girls in the same age group the figure
has varied between every fourth and every fifth. According to the report,
19% of Finnish boys and 20% of the girls under the age of 15 smoke.

Professor Lasse Kannas of the Finnish University of JyvUskylU emphasises
that the results show the average trends. Kannas has doubts about the
actual decrease in smoking amongst Finnish youngsters as the figures do
not include use of snuff.  Kannas does not expect that the total exposure
to nicotine has changed. The WHO study included over 4,800 Finnish
youngsters.

Source: Helsingin Sanomat (XFB) via The Gale Group, 12 Apr 2000


FRANCE: Hospital patients to be given smoking cessation help

Specialist help is to be given to hospital patients to help them stop
smoking with an increase in consultations to 450 in hospitals with a
capacity of more than 500 beds from the current level of 250.  Each unit
will include a full time nurse and a doctor who will perform six weekly
sessions of three and a half hours.  The measures are the result of a FFr
25mn budget, part of the Finance bill for 2000. Such consultations account
for two per cent of people who stop smoking each year.

Source: Le Quotidien du Medecin (XNV) via The Gale Group, 7 Apr 2000


FRANCE / ITALY: News in brief: Cigarette 'caused tunnel fire'

A smouldering cigarette end is likely to have started the fire in the Mont
Blanc tunnel which killed 39 people last year.  This was the preliminary
conclusion of experts taking part in the official investigation who
conducted a detailed analysis of the burnt-out Volvo lorry at the seat of
the fire in the tunnel, which connects France and Italy.

The cigarette end, thrown from another vehicle, entered the lorry=92s air
intake, setting fire to the air filter and then the entire engine, the
experts were quoted as saying.

Source: Electronic Telegraph, Saturday, 6 May 2000


FRANCE/SPAIN:  Altadis Sheds 168 Jobs

European tobacco company Altadis announced after an extraordinary meeting
of its reorganization committee that 168 jobs will be cut due to
restructuring.

Altadis is also implementing a voluntary job cuts programme in its
cigarettes group as part of a plan to boost performance at the division.

Source: The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, 5/5/00


HUNGARY: Smoke-free caf=E9 chain expands

A smoke-free caf=E9 chain, established by General Practitioner Gyula Morik
in 1997, is set to expand across the country.  Morik Cafes currently has
five cafes throughout the country. Another four are to be set up by the
end of 2000.  Smoking is prohibited since it impairs the quality of coffee
beans.  Each coffee-house generates an annual turnover of Ft 24mn or more.

Source: Budapest Business Journal (ANB)  10-16 Apr 2000


IRELAND: Smoky pubs health danger to staff spurs plan for curbs

The highest levels of carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke have been
recorded in public houses in Galway, giving rise to serious concern for
the health of bar workers.  Bar ventilation systems were found to be
ineffective. In some instances publicans were apparently unwilling to turn
on expensive ventilation systems because of incurring extra costs. Now new
regulations are proposed to control the risk of passive smoking to bar
staff and customers.

Under current legislation, smoking is banned in a range of outlets,
including hairdressing salons, bingo halls, doctors' and dentists'
surgeries and chemist shops. Restaurants must provide for half of their
seating space to be smoke free.  But public houses and betting shops are
exempt from smoking bans, despite concerns for customers, and particularly
for those who work in such environments.

Fifty pub workers in Dublin, all members of the Mandate trade union, have
initiated legal action for damage to their health arising from the smoky
atmosphere in which they have been obliged to work. The first of the
landmark cases is not expected to be heard before next year.

The study of passive smoking in pubs by Senior Environmental Health
Officer, Maurice Mulcahy has revealed significantly higher levels of
environmental tobacco smoke in pubs than were previously realised. Not
only were the vast majority of bars surveyed unable to maintain effective
ventilation, but readings at two bars showed unprecedented levels of
carbon monoxide, suggesting that other tobacco constituents were also at
high levels.

Mr Mulcahy said:  =93The readings were quite shocking, particularly as they
were over 50 per cent higher than those recorded anywhere else in the
world. No matter how limited out knowledge of the trigger level for cancer
or cardiovascular disease or strokes, the duration of environmental
tobacco smoke exposure of bar personnel in this study in combination with
these new found peaks of a marker gas is a cause for concern.  =93It
suggests that, failing an outright ban on smoking in bars, much more work
needs to be done to ensure a minimum of 12 fresh air changes per hour and
to educate all those in the trade to manage passive smoking risks
effectively,=94 he added.

One Galway city publican who attempted to make his premises smoke-free,
had to revert to allowing customers to smoke after only three months of
the experiment, as he was losing trade.

A growing lobby of health professionals, environmental health officers and
consumer groups are now anxious to see Irish pubs follow the lead of
restaurants by at least providing a smoke-free area. Environmental health
officers are ideally seeking a change of emphasis in legislation which
would only allow smoking in pubs shown to have adequate ventilation.

Mr Mulcahy added:  =93Enforcement of the 12 air changes per hour would go
some way to dilute the effects of second-hand smoke on those involuntarily
exposed, most especially bar personnel.=94

Mr Mulcahy=92s paper on passive smoking in bars has been prepared for
submission to the Robens Centre for Occupational Safety at the University
of Surrey and was presented to an environmental health conference
organised by the Irish Environmental Health Officers Associations and the
University of Ulster in Cavan yesterday.

Leaders of the Vintners Federation of Ireland at their AGM in Wexford have
called on the Government and the tobacco industry to help publicans
install costly ventilation equipment to improve air quality in bars.

Source: Irish Independent, Thursday, 11 May 2000


NORWAY: Doctors to receive anti-smoke training

The Norwegian public health institute (Statens institutt for folkehelse)
is developing a training programme for physicians that will help them help
smokers to kick the habit. According to Karl Erik Lund, researcher at the
institute, Norwegian physicians have never received any such training and
lack the techniques needed to help their patients. Along with a special
computer programme designed for the Norwegian doctor's association (Den
norske legeforening), the institute hopes to train doctors to help 20,000
patients to stop smoking each year. Currently, the number is 5,000
patients.

Source: Aftenposten (AF) via The Gale Group, 10 Apr 2000



UNITED KINGDOM:  =A35,000 payout for boy whose mother had to work in a smok=
y
office

A mother who claimed that passive smoking affected her unborn child=92s
health has won a battle for compensation which could lead to thousands of
similar cases.

Colette Comstive says her son Matthew, now seven, suffers asthma and
recurring chest infections after she was forced to work in a smoky office
during her pregnancy.  Despite her complaints, her employer, the catalogue
company Great Universal Stores, failed to move her to a smoke-free
environment at its office in Burnley.

Following a four-year legal fight, the boy was awarded =A35,000, agreed by =
a
judge in chambers. GUS, which denied liability, also agreed to pay =A35,800
costs.

Mrs Comstive worked as a part-time telephone clerk for GUS. She said that
of the 100 staff in the open- plan office, around 90 smoked.  She was
often forced to sit next to a smoker and even the non- smoking table, to
which she was eventually moved, was surrounded by clouds of smoke.

=93The atmosphere was excessively smoky,=94 she said. =93Unfortunately beca=
use
of the situation we were working in it was not possible to move me out of
the office.=94 Matthew was born in August 1992 weighing 6lb 11oz and began
suffering respiratory problems at six months.  His mother claims that by
the age of two he had suffered at least 13 chest infections which required
medical treatment. His asthma now forces him to use an inhaler daily
during the summer. And he is so susceptible to illness that each winter he
suffers on average five chest infections.

In September 1995, two years after leaving the company, Mrs Comstive
launched her legal battle for compensation claiming her son's illness had
been caused as a direct result of passive smoking at work.

Mrs Comstive, now a customer services adviser for a high street bank,
decided to accept the payout rather than continue her battle as the amount
was thought to be similar to that which could have been awarded if the
matter had gone to trial. Her son will receive the cash, which has been
invested by his legal team, when he is 18.

Dr Ian Mecrow, consultant paediatrician at Stockport's Stepping Hill
Hospital, who advised Mrs Comstive's legal team, said:  =93There is no doub=
t
that mothers smoking in pregnancy have babies who are of lighter birth
weight and are more likely to have chest infections.  The logical argument
therefore is that the same will be true for babies of women passively
exposed to tobacco smoke.=94

Source: Daily Mail, 13 May 2000


UZBEKISTAN:  BAT triples production

British American Tobacco Uzbekistan has tripled production to dominate the
Uzbek market in its five years of operations.  The increase in sales from
last year earned the joint venture between BAT and the former Uzbekistan
tobacco monopoly more than $10 million from the foreign market. The
company said it has seen an increase in domestic sales of 500% since
operations began in 1995.

Source: Tobacco International, April 2000


Amanda Sandford Research Manager ASH - 102 Clifton Street - LONDON EC2A
4HW tel: 020 7739 5902 - fax: 020 7613 0531