Longevity think tank calls for action on tobacco control
Monday, August 2, 2021 at 13:00 Ever heard of the International Longevity Centre? No, me neither, until this morning.
The Times reports:
Smoking costs the UK economy more than £19 billion a year, according to a new report which urges the government to increase tobacco taxes to help society to become “smoke free”.
I'll try to find out how this figure was calculated (or ‘estimated’) but the report is the work of the International Longevity Centre UK, a think tank founded in 1997 "as one of the members of the International Longevity Centre Global Alliance, an international network on longevity".
Sounding remarkably like ASH, the authors write:
Policy makers must prevent people from taking up smoking. We recommend that they:
Raise the legal age for purchasing tobacco to 21 (in the first instance).
Reduce tobacco affordability by raising the annual rate of increase in UK tobacco duties from 2% to 5% plus inflation.
Reduce the size of the illicit market by introducing a tobacco licensing system for retailers and wholesalers.
Other suggestions include investing in "smoking cessation services, treatments and medications across the life course" and implementing "a ‘polluter pays’ Tobacco Control Fund legislation, which requires tobacco manufacturers to pay a levy or licence fee to the Government to fund tobacco control policies".
If all these proposals sound familiar it's because they are virtually identical to demands made by ASH and other tobacco control groups in advance of the announcement of the Government's new Tobacco Control Plan.
It was expected that the plan would be published in July, before the summer recess.
A few weeks ago however responses by ministers to parliamentary questions indicated that the announcement would be delayed, partly as a result of a Covid-related delay in the publication of the annual Office for National Statistics' report concerning adult smoking habits in the UK.
The last ONS report (for 2019) was published in July 2020. The new report will therefore cover 2020 and will be interesting because it should offer greater clarity concerning the number of smokers who quit during the pandemic.
If you remember, this time last year ASH were claiming that one million smokers in the UK had quit following the arrival of the pandemic in Britain.
Earlier this year they appeared to row back on that claim so I can't wait to see what spin they put on the official figures when they are published.
Either way ASH will no doubt spin the stats to their advantage when lobbying government ahead of the announcement of the Tobacco Control Plan.
If the figures indicate that a large number of smokers have quit during the pandemic ASH will urge the Government to push harder, faster, to maintain momentum.
If, on the other hand, the figures show that smoking rates have not fallen in line with recent trends then expect demands for immediate – and sustained – action to make up for that setback.
But back to the ILC report and the press release announcing its publication, I couldn't help noticing this comment by Professor Les Mayhew, one of two authors of the report:
“The pandemic has shown that smokers and ex-smokers are more likely to end up in hospital if they have Covid ..."
As readers know this is debatable at best. According to many studies current smokers appear to have a reduced risk of being admitted to hospital with Covid.
Indeed a living rapid evidence review of 'The association of smoking status with SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalisation and mortality from COVID-19' has consistency found that:
Current smokers were at reduced risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and former smokers were at increased risk of hospitalisation, disease severity and mortality compared with never smokers.
See 'Review affirms that current smokers are at reduced risk of infection from Covid-19'.
It's been several months since the last version (v11) of the review was published but a few weeks ago I was told that another update was due in July, with v12 available on the open science platform Qeios early this month (August).
As for the ILC report (Up in smoke: The impact of smoking on health and economic activity), I mentioned that Prof Mayhew, head of global research, is one of two authors.
The other – Sophia Dimitriadis – 'is Research Fellow at ILC and was previously Policy and Research Officer at ASH Wales'.
Small world!
Reader Comments (3)
The smokerphobic bullies are already negatively working on the explanation of the sudden appearance of so many smokers during the pandemic. The ones who couldn't buy legitimately abroad , or those forced to the black market because of punitive, unfair taxes, suddenly became visible during covid as they turned to UK shops and outlets for UK taxed tobacco, led the bullies in tobacco control to spin this as selfish smokers denying everyone else tax.
If only government would take the blinkers off and tell the thugs in tobacco control to get lost and recognise that smokers were about the only people helping the economy along and our taxes probably did more than any other consumer to pay for the vaccines which everyone benefits from.
Tobacco control have vested interests and those are to keep the funding rolling in to pay their salaries, fund their junk science, and prejudices, tell outright lies, such as smokers are more likely to end up with covid when every study except the one they funded shows the opposite, keep their parasitic industry going, and all at the cost of tax payers who have no choice but to throw money at this hate organisation that is sucking the life out of the economy with its political mission that has bugger all to do with health.
Smokers give - tobacco control takes. That right there is the basic truth.
The propaganda never ends. When the main tobacco control apparatus fails never fear just open a new false front to act as the mouthpiece for the movement. And it is no surprise that the membership of this new outlet contains professional antismokers (after all that's how the grift works)!
Never mind if there is no actual data behind the alleged 'evidence-based intervention' (read ideological activism). Tobacco control lies jut keep rolling along. And no one seems to see the patterns of deception that sustain the grift.
If anyone's interested in following up ILC UK in detail, the charity number is 1080496, also registered as an English company with number 3798902. Note also the subsidiary company ILC UK Services Limited (co. no. 06666320), which offers research services and donates its profits by way of gift aid to the parent company.
ILC UK's latest annual report may be of some interest, especially the lists of academic partnerships and donors. For instance, I can see why major insurance companies might be interested in research on longevity, but not why they'd actually back smoking cessation legislation (if indeed they're aware their funds have been used to do this).