McDonald's recall clouded by lack of standards

McDonald's decision to recall 12 million "Shrek" beverage glasses that contain cadmium in their colored designs bears the hallmarks of a classic product-safety scare.

Cadmium is a known carcinogen, and the Illinois-based fast-food giant was selling the glassware in a large-scale promotion tied to the popular children's film franchise.

But as more information emerged Friday, events surrounding the recall became less clear. Federal regulators indicated the "Shrek" glasses do not pose a hazard. Yet that statement is difficult to quantify because there is a dearth of federal standards regarding acceptable levels of cadmium, an element found in everything from leafy green vegetables to cigarettes.

Outside a Former Temple of Big Tobacco, Feeling Put Upon Once More

There was a time when people did not think twice about smoking. That was when a pack of cigarettes could be bought for pocket change, when it was still legal to smoke in bars and restaurants, when Philip Morris — the nation’s largest tobacco company —still had its headquarters in the Philip Morris building. Philip Morris is the manufacturer of Parliament cigarettes.

Of course, things have changed. After all, the Philip Morris building is not even called that anymore. (When it was new, in the early 1980s, it was called the Philip Morris Research Center and Headquarters, at first. Philip Morris’s parent company, the Altria Group, moved its headquarters to Richmond, Va., two years ago.)

On the sidewalk alongside that building, at 120 Park Avenue, across from Grand Central Terminal, is an oasis for smokers in an increasingly smoke-free city: two thigh-high ashtrays and room to stand for the few minutes between lighting up and stubbing out. Smokers know this place well: Some come from as far as a block and a half away, because they dare not light up outside their own office buildings.

It is between a subway entrance and, of all things, a tobacco shop. And it is not a happy place. The latest sin tax, part of an emergency budget measure to keep the state government running, will add $1.60 in state taxes to a pack of cigarettes. In New York City, where cigarettes are also subject to municipal taxes, the price of a pack of some brands will jump to more than $11 — or more than 50 cents per cigarette.

Smokers came and went in this open-air smoking lounge, but the anger against the new tax — and sense that smokers are being picked on in budget-conscious times — remained.

“I’m definitely not happy about it,” John O’Gorman, a risk manager who was smoking a Marlboro Light, said of the new cigarette tax, which takes effect on July 1. “There have got to be easier ways to raise more money.”

All right, Mr. O’Gorman: Pretend that you were a governor facing a big budget shortfall. What would you tax to raise additional revenue?

“All the cars coming into Manhattan,” because they contribute to air pollution, Mr. O’Gorman said. “Maybe there’s a way to tax that.”

Among a cross section of smokers the consensus was that the new tax was an economic penalty. How much of a penalty depended on each smoker’s own story, on how cost-conscious they had become in a recession, on whether they had jobs or had lost them. Some said that paying an extra $1.60 a pack would make cigarettes cost so much that they would get serious about quitting once and for all.

Doreen Campo, on a smoke break on Madison Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets, said her mother had died of lung cancer after smoking for years. Ms. Campo, 51, said she had continued to smoke, but the new tax could change that.

“I won’t be able to afford to smoke,” she said, smoking a Marlboro Light. “It’s too expensive. It’s expensive now. You end up short. You end up not eating because you want those cigarettes.”

Still, she said, picking on smokers for new and higher taxes amounted to economic discrimination. “I mean, everybody has a right to do what they want to do,” she said. “It ruined the business for the bars because no one wants to go out in the cold to have a cigarette, or if you’re having a conversation, instead of you and me having a conversation, we have to get up and excuse ourselves and go outside. Even the restaurants. First they have smoking sections. Then they have none. Then you have the annoying people that pass by and they go like this.”

She waved her arms as if she were clearing smoke from a fire.

Daniel Conard, a sales manager smoking outside the former Philip Morris building, said the price still had a way to go before he decided that smoking was unaffordable. How high would the price per pack have to go? “For myself,” he said, “it would be $15.”

But New York is not getting much revenue from him, even now. “I’m from Kentucky,” he said. “I go home and buy a few cartons.” And not that often: “I’m a work smoker,” he said. “I don’t smoke at home.” He said he smoked two or three cigarettes a day.

He mentioned a tax on soda, an idea that Gov. David A. Paterson floated earlier in the year. “Smoking’s not good,” he said. “Drinking soda’s not good for the well-being of society, I guess. Still, I smoke. My great aunt smoked all her life and lived to 105. Some people do that.”

Riverbend says tobacco vendors in compliance

Riverbend organizers are dismissing complaints from local health officials that tobacco vendors could be violating a federal settlement that prohibits marketing tobacco products to children.

Camel, USA Gold and Longhorn smokeless tobacco vendors are providing free samples to Riverbend patrons of legal age, said Chip Baker, executive director of Friends of the Festival.

PDF: Open letter to Chip Baker

“They are absolutely in compliance,” he said.

Leaders of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Health Council and the county Health Department sent Mr. Baker a letter Thursday, urging organizers to make the festival a smoke-free event.

Health officials said they are concerned that the vendors’ presence at a family-oriented event could violate the 1998 multistate master settlement agreement, which bans marketing of tobacco products to people under 18.
Tobacco companies also said they would provide states with funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs and to cover some health costs related to tobacco use.

At Riverbend, the tobacco vendors are set up along Riverfront Parkway near the Bud Light stage, festival organizers said. But health officials worry because the tents also are near the Children’s Village play area.

Young people “are bound to be influenced” if the popular local festival promotes tobacco, Hamilton County Health Department Administrator Becky Barnes said.

Nearly half of Tennesseans aged 18 to 25 smoke, said Howard Roddy, vice president at Memorial Hospital and chairman of the health council.

“We’re just concerned again that tobacco products would be too accessible and available to our young adults,” he said.

Mr. Baker said there is an alcohol- and smoke-free area of the festival and, if the demand is there, he’s open to expanding that area.

The Camel and USA Gold vendors have fully enclosed tents, and Longhorn has an enclosed trailer, said Tammy Sitton, director of marketing with Friends of the Festival. All require proper ID for entry, and people are carded again before they can receive a free sample, she said.

The state attorney general’s office is evaluating photos of the vendors’ set-ups to see if they comply with the master settlement, spokeswoman Sharon Curtis-Flair said.

Everett board bans sale of tobacco in drugstores

Starting next week, smokers will find it a little less convenient to pick up a pack of cigarettes in Everett.

Hoping to deliver another blow against smoking, the Board of Health on May 24 voted unanimously to ban the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies. The ban, which takes effect next Tuesday, also applies to business establishments that include pharmacies, according to Heidi Porter, Everett’s public health director.

“Pharmacies and drugstores that sell tobacco products are essentially approving of the purchase and use of tobacco. And we think that sends a mixed message to consumers who are going to these pharmacies really for health care services,’’ Porter said, of what prompted the ban. “The bottom line is that these pharmacies are health care establishments.’’

The ban, which took the form of a revision to the board’s tobacco regulation, prohibits tobacco sales in any health care institution or establishments containing them, with “health care institution’’ defined to include pharmacies and drugstores.

Porter said since hospitals and medical offices in this area do not sell tobacco products, the ban on tobacco sales in pharmacies and businesses containing them was the key change. The revised ordinance also bans tobacco vending machines except in private clubs.

Everett becomes the fifth Massachusetts community to bar the sale of tobacco in pharmacies. There will appear real issues about cigarette brands like Winston brand or Parliament cigarettes.

Boston led the way in December, 2008 when it became the second city in the country — the first was San Francisco — to adopt such a ban. The Boston ban, which took effect in February 2009, was part of a larger tightening by the city of its tobacco restrictions.

Similar bans on tobacco sales in pharmacies followed in Needham, Uxbridge, and Newton, according to Jason Dodd, director of the 5-City Tobacco Control Collaborative, a partnership among the health boards of Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Revere, and Somerville that works to develop and enforce anti-tobacco policies.

He said the Somerville Health Department is expected to put the idea of a ban in that city before its board after the start of the new fiscal year July 1.

Dr. Sean F. Connolly, chairman of the Everett Board of Health, said the board felt “it is hard to justify the paradox of a health care institution — which these pharmacies and stores with pharmacies are defined as — that is practicing good health and making people healthy through medications, being able to sell cigarettes, which are known carcinogens.’’

But Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said his group opposes the bans that have been adopted in Everett and the other communities.

“As long as it’s a legal product, it seems to me consumers ought to have the choice of buying it at the store that they like to shop at,’’ he said, adding that communities adopting such rules ought to lose some of the funding they receive from the state’s cigarette tax to pay for anti-tobacco programs.

Everett has three pharmacies or establishments with pharmacies that have permits from the board to sell tobacco products, according to Porter.

She said the three — Walgreens, on Ferry Street; Rite-Aid, on Broadway; and Costco, on Mystic View Road — are being notified that they must remove tobacco products from their shelves by next Tuesday.

At an April 20 hearing the board held in considering the regulation, and at the May 24 meeting, representatives from Costco and Walgreens spoke against the change. Connolly said the two companies raised concerns about the financial impact of the ban on their establishments. He said the Costco representatives also noted that it would be virtually impossible for a minor to purchase cigarettes at Costco because it is a member-only business.

But Connolly said those arguments did not sway the board, which he said was focused on public health considerations.

“I see on a daily basis in my office the effects of cigarette smoking,’’ said Connolly, a podiatrist. “So it doesn’t take much to convince me that this is the right idea.’’

Kevin Horst, general manager of the Everett Costco store, said, “We certainly support the idea of stopping teens from smoking, but at this time we don’t have a comment on this specific regulation as it is written. We are exploring options.’’

Robert Elfinger, spokesman for the Walgreens corporation, said, “We intend to comply with the new law.’’

Speaking in favor of the ban at the hearing were members of Teens in Everett Against Substance Abuse, a local youth group that advocates for measures to address substance abuse issues in the city.

Members of the group, an initiative of the Cambridge Health Alliance, offered statistics on the negative impacts of tobacco on human health, and spoke of the disconnect between tobacco products and a pharmacy, said program director Jean Granick.

Cigarette packs no longer bear terms such as 'light'

Colorful new cigarette packs that no longer display deceptive descriptors such as "light" are showing up in city stores, but health officials and even inveterate puffers are saying the change is just more Big Tobacco smoke and mirrors.

The last of the old packs will be sold on June 22, thanks to a new federal law designed to junk the misleading monikers.

After that, New York's 1 million...

Strong deterrent bill in offing

The draft of the anti-tobacco bill is in its final stage in parliament. As soon as parliament approves the Tobacco Control and Regulatory Act-2010, the government will ban smoking or use of tobacco products in public places with punishment attached for the offence.

Bal Sagar Giri, undersecretary and chief of the legal section of Health Ministry, said legislation is in its final stage. After parliament passes the bill, the ministry will formulate provisions within 91 days to effectively implement the act.

The World No Tobacco Day was celebrated in Nepal today with the slogan ‘Gender and tobacco, with emphasis on marketing for women.’

The draft of the Anti-tobacco bill prohibits smoking in public vehicles, health organisations, child welfare and child care institutions and educational institutions, among others.

The draft includes provision of fine ranging from a minimum of Rs 5,000 to a maximum of Rs 100,000. The minimum fine will apply to people who smoke at public places, while companies that place billboards of tobacco products will be charged maximum fine.

“The Constitutional Committee of parliament has amended a bill prepared by the government making it mandatory to allocate 75 percent of space in cigarette packets or wrappers or labels of any tobacco product for anti-tobacco use messages and pictures,” said Giri.

As per the bill, only license holders can sell tobacco products and such products should not be sold to people below the age of 18 or over 75, and smokers can smoke only in designated places.

The bill has proposed ban on all types of advertisement and endorsement of tobacco products in the media and gatherings. It has also banned publicity by companies while sponsoring programmes, informed Giri.

Nepal had signed the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2003 and ratified it in November 2006. With ratification of the Convention, Nepal must promulgate proper domestic laws to control production and trade in tobacco products.

Dr Yasho Bardhan Pradhan, director general, Department of Health Service, recommended that tax on tobacco products be hiked every year. The retail price of tobacco products should also be hiked by 66 per cent, he said.

“A 1992 cabinet decision had banned smoking in public places. This was revised in 2010” said Pradhan, adding, “The Supreme Court also issued orders to ban smoking in public places and advertisement of tobacco products in 2006 and 2009.” “However, these have not been implemented yet.”