UK supreme court denies tobacco firms permission for plain packaging appeal

All cigarettes sold in the UK must have standardised packaging from next month after the supreme court refused permission to the tobacco industry to appeal against the new laws.

This is the final domestic legal decision, meaning that plain packaging of cigarettes will come into force on 20 May, the Department of Health said.

Rules requiring tobacco to be packaged in drab, dark brown packs with no graphic branding came into effect in May 2016, with branded packs subsequently being phased out.

Tobacco companies went to the supreme court after the court of appeal last November rejected their attempt to prevent the introduction of mandatory plain packaging of cigarettes in the UK.

British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and Philip Morris International claimed that the law would infringe their human and intellectual property rights.

The new packs are the same shape, size and colour, with two thirds of the front and back surfaces covered by pictorial health warnings, and written warnings on the sides.

The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, welcomed the supreme court’s decision, saying: “Standardised packaging will cut smoking rates and reduce suffering, disease and avoidable deaths.”

Smoking remains the biggest cause of premature mortality in the UK, killing more than 100,000 Britons annually, despite Public Health England figures showing a decline in the number of smokers to fewer than one in six adults.

Widespread use of e-cigarettes, nicotine patches and gum helped a record 500,000 smokers kick the habit in 2015, the agency said, bringing the number of ex-smokers in England to 14.6 million.

In 1974, more than half of men in Britain smoked, but that fell in England to just 19.1% by 2015. The rate for women declined from just over 40% in 1974 to only 14.9% in 2015.

The chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, said: “Smoking is the biggest preventable killer in this country and this legislation will save lives, so I am thrilled that the tobacco industry will not be allowed to appeal. After years of hard work, I look forward to seeing this policy now brought in, and smoking numbers fall even further.”

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the health charity Ash (Action on Smoking and Health UK), said the ruling finally ended attempts by “big tobacco” to overturn the UK legislation on standardised packaging.

“This is the latest in a long line of crushing legal defeats for the tobacco industry. Over the years the industry has squandered many millions of pounds of its own money in futile legal challenges, but worse still it has wasted public time and money, which could have been much better spent improving public health.”

In a sign that tobacco companies acknowledge that the tide of public opinion is turning against them, the boss of Marlboro maker Philip Morris has predicted a “phase-out period” for cigarettes.

André Calantzopoulos made the comments in November as the company launched a new product it claimed was less harmful than traditional smoking. The iQos heats tobacco but does not burn it, releases fewer toxins and is capable of replacing cigarettes in the long term, according to Philip Morris.

However, campaigners and analysts questioned whether e-cigarettes or other products such as the iQos would ever replace cigarettes.

Arnott said at the time: “Philip Morris claims to be moving towards a post-smoking future but, like other tobacco companies, it is still actively promoting smoking around the world, using methods that would be illegal in the UK.”

UK supreme court denies tobacco firms permission for plain packaging appeal

Theresa May denies "humanitarian crisis" in Britain"s NHS

Theresa May has rejected claims by the British Red Cross of a “humanitarian crisis” in the health system but acknowledged there were “huge pressures” on the NHS.

“I don’t accept the description the Red Cross has made of this,” the prime minister said.

“Yes, there are huge pressures on the NHS, but first of all we should thank all the dedicated professionals in the NHS who have been working so hard over what is always a difficult period in terms of the number of people using the NHS – the Christmas and New Year period.”

Theresa May interviewed by Sophy Ridge on Sky News. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

She told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: “Yes, there are significant pressures, but we recognise those pressures. We asked the NHS a while back to set out what it needed over the next five years in terms of its plan for the future and the funding that it would need. They did that, we gave them that funding, in fact we gave them more funding than they required.

“So funding is now at record levels for the NHS, more money has been going in.”

May added: “There are pressures in the NHS, we see those pressures. We have an ageing population, this brings pressures, particularly in the interface between the health service and social care.

“We have taken some immediate steps in relation to that issue but we are also looking to ensure best practice in the NHS and looking for a long-term solution to what has been a problem that has been ducked by government over the years.

“The NHS is facing the pressures of the ageing population, that is why it is important that it is the NHS that has produced its five-year plan and is now putting that plan into practice.”

Labour has called for May or the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to make an emergency statement on the NHS when parliament returns on Monday.

Theresa May denies "humanitarian crisis" in Britain"s NHS

Nurse denies falsifying Ebola patient Pauline Cafferkey"s temperature

A nurse who faces being struck off over a botched Ebola screening in Heathrow airport has said it is “preposterous” that she would have concealed knowledge that Pauline Cafferkey was unwell.

Donna Wood, an NHS nurse who volunteered along with Cafferkey to work in Sierra Leone in 2014, said she would never have put her country, her family or herself in such danger.

She faces being struck off after being charged by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) with falsifying Cafferkey’s temperature as they passed through the Heathrow screening process on 28 December 2014.

“I absolutely dispute the allegation because if I had been aware of anybody having a temperature it would have been a complete danger, a red alert in my mind,” she said.

She said “alarm bells” would have gone off in her head and she would have immediately taken action if a colleague had had a high temperature, as this is the first symptom of Ebola.

It is alleged that Wood, a reluctant poster girl of the government’s Ebola volunteer recruitment drive, dishonestly recorded Cafferkey’s temperate as 37.2C when she knew it was 38.2C.

Pauline Cafferkey. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Under the Public Health England protocols, anyone who presented themselves with a temperature above 37.5C should have been referred for further assessment by a special infectious diseases expert.

The charges were brought after an investigation launched by Public Health England two days after Cafferkey fell critically ill with Ebola.

A doctor in the returning volunteer group, Hannah Ryan, alleged that Wood had said she would write the temperature down as one degree lower so they could get out of the “chaotic” screening area and “sort it out” themselves later.

“It would be preposterous to even contemplate that I would allow myself to be put in danger, or someone else, or my family or my country,” Wood said. “I just spent six weeks protecting myself from contracting Ebola, ensuring my colleagues working around me were protecting themselves against Ebola. The reason I had gone out to Sierra Leone was to control the spread of Ebola. There is no way I would have let someone else be at risk,” she said.

Wood told an NMC hearing in Stratford, east London, that she had no recollection of filling in Cafferkey’s form, as alleged by a doctor who had previously given evidence. Nor did she know that Cafferkey had taken paracetamol, which could possibly mask an elevated temperature, she said.

She said she remembered that Cafferkey had said she was feeling “warm” when they got off the flight and went to the toilet “to freshen up”. Cafferkey had ascribed her feeling to the fact that she had slept wearing a hoodie on the plane.

Wood said she remembered very clearly telling Cafferkey not to take paracetamol because it could affect her temperatures recordings, which were universally used as the first barrier of infection prevention with checks taken several times a day while they were in Sierra Leone.

“As we were leaving the toilets, we were on a very wide corridor, a lot of people around us. She said it very clearly so that I heard her: ‘I think I’m going to ask Dr Hannah if I should take some paracetamol.’

“Absolutely without a second at all, I responded staight away: ‘Gosh, no, you mustn’t do that. That could mask any temperature or symptoms,’” said Wood.

She told the NMC independent panel that none of the protocols of infection prevention and control were in place at Heathrow. Temperatures of passengers arriving at the airport were not taken as they disembarked from the plane from Sierra Leone, she said.

Although the volunteers were classified as being at the highest Ebola risk level under Public Health England protocols because they had worked on the frontline, Wood told how she was allowed to queue up with hundreds of other passengers arriving from all over the world in passport control before being taken to the Public Health England screening area, where she was again in close proximity to members of the public.

At the time America and Europe were gripped by panic over the potential spread of Ebola from west Africa to other parts of the globe.

The Ebola virus is spread through bodily fluids including saliva and sweat, and those who had worked in Sierra Leone were operating under the same strict “no touch” protocols as the public under the state emergency laws.

Wood told how the volunteers were banned from going to shops or churches or meeting locals in Sierra Leone and were under strict instructions to stay in the beach resort hotel that had been hired by Save the Children, which ran the Kerrytown hospital they were working in.

Describing how she felt standing close to others who had come from Sierra Leone in the screening area, she said: “I remember this wasn’t right. Through my training, you weren’t allowed go out to shops, churches, and here we were in a crowded area with people I didn’t know. They had come from Sierra Leone but thoughts were entering my head: could this person be unwell? Or could this person have been with someone who had Ebola?

“I remember being uncomfortable being that close in a crowded area.”

Under cross-examination Wood said she could recall a doctor holding up a thermometer but no one called out a temperature reading. She said she would have been gripped by panic if she had seen a temperature of 38.2C as it would have been an early warning.

“I would have been putting them at risk, myself at risk, my family at risk, all their families at risk, everyone in that room at risk”, which was something she would not have done “bearing in mind we had just had six weeks seeing horrific deaths”, she said.

Nurse denies falsifying Ebola patient Pauline Cafferkey"s temperature

Val Kilmer denies he has cancer after Michael Douglas claims

Val Kilmer has denied claims by Michael Douglas that he has cancer after the latter said “things don’t look to good for him”.

Douglas, who acted with Kilmer in 1996 film The Ghost and the Darkness, was discussing the film at a Q&A in London on Sunday. According to People, he told host Jonathan Ross: “The picture didn’t turn out as well as I hoped, but I had a wonderful time. Val was a wonderful guy who is dealing with exactly what I had, and things don’t look too good for him.”

Douglas was diagnosed with tongue cancer in 2010, although it was initially reported as throat cancer. “My prayers are with him. That’s why you haven’t heard too much from Val lately,” Douglas added.

But on Tuesday night Kilmer posted on Facebook denying that he was ill. “I love Michael Douglas but he is misinformed,” Kilmer wrote. “The last time I spoke to him was almost two years ago, when I asked him for a referral for a specialist to get a diagnosis for a lump in my throat.

“I ended up using a team at UCLA and have no cancer whatsoever. I still have a swollen tongue and am rehabbing steadily … come see me live and happy and in person in Westwood next week if you think I’m fibbing!”

Kilmer is a follower of Christian Science, whose adherents often reject conventional medicine in the belief that prayer will heal them. He addressed fans’ concerns that he was not taking care of his health in the post. “Some fans have mistakenly thought my silence about my personal issues meant that somehow I wasn’t being responsible to my health, because of my reliance on prayer and love,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. I hope this puts to rest any further concerns about my health by publications that have no respect for the truth.

“Whatever led Michael Douglas to speculate about my health, he’s a loving and devoted friend to a privileged group of talented people around the world, and I’m sure he meant no harm.”

Fears for Kilmer’s health had first been raised in 2015, when he spent time in hospital and was later seen wearing a tracheostomy tube, although he repeatedly denied he had a tumour or cancer.

Val Kilmer denies he has cancer after Michael Douglas claims

Penelope Leach denies her new childcare guide is an attack on fathers

‘I think fathers are just as critical to a child’s daily life as mothers, even though the timing is diverse,’ says Penelope Leach. Photograph: Alamy

Childcare guru Penelope Leach has defended herself against fees that she sides against fathers in her new book, which suggests overnight stays with an absent mother or father are damaging for really tiny children.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, she says her book, about helping children caught in the breakdown of their parents’ connection, is “pro-fathers, not anti-them. The major purpose I wrote it was to assist dad and mom to perform collectively after marriage break-up, and a massive element of that is so fathers get the part they deserve and their youngsters require.”

Before publication, Loved ones Breakdown has been fiercely criticised by both fathers and psychologists for its assertion that below the age of 4, children must continue to be with their main caregiver – typically the mother – and not remain overnight with the absent parent. She asserts that it can undermine children’s security, make them much more irritable and perhaps interfere with their social advancement.

But she is hurt, she says, by stories of a furious reaction from fathers. “In the huge majority of circumstances, it’s the mom who is the major attachment figure: younger babies require a main caregiver and currently being separated from that figure can result in them difficulties. If a father was the main caregiver, I would say the child should not be staying overnight with the mom.

“But I feel fathers are just as essential to a child’s daily life as mothers, however the timing is distinct. They have a tendency to come into their own in the second 12 months, rather than at birth, and kids who have a shut relationship with their fathers do far better by way of existence in each and every way.”

Nevertheless, she is accused, by psychologists of possessing inadequate proof for her assertion that sleepovers can be detrimental. In the book – subtitled “assisting children hang on to both their parents” – she cites a review from Australia which, its authors say, has been misinterpreted. Not too long ago far more than 100 psychologists, mainly from the United States, signed a consensus statement which rejected those findings. “Policymakers and determination makers should recognise that depriving young kids of overnights with their fathers could compromise the high quality of building father-child relationships,” they explained.

Professor Charlie Lewis from Lancaster University was 1 of the Uk signatories. “The evidence however does not assistance her [Leach],” he explained. “Metanalyses [critiques combining the final results of big numbers of studies] that appear at whether or not or not it is much better for the non-resident parent to have contact with the little one display that the far more speak to there is with the non-resident mother or father, the greater the end result for the little one.”

He additional that co-residency, where the youngster lives sometimes with the mother and often with the father, “is a marker of the maturity of the two mothers and fathers”, which meant a better partnership, which was extremely much in the child’s interests.

Leach says that she does not want to be believed towards divorce – or separation the place parents are not married – which is now so regular: relationships break down irretrievably around 42% of marriages end in divorce. Her concern is about the youngsters who “are being utilized as weapons in the marital war when truly they are its victims”.

“We can argue about all sorts of issues around the edges, but we can’t argue about the harm it does,” she says. “Divorce or separation will always be poor for kids – there’s no obtaining away from it. It ranges from disruptive and sad to tragic. What’s greatest for kids is if their mother and father adore a single an additional for ever … but there are constantly tons of items that you can not get excellent for your kids.”

She reveals that she herself was a youngster caught in the crossfire as her mother and father – novelist Nigel Balchin and his wife, Elisabeth – split up, soon after a companion-swap arrangement with artist Michael Ayrton and his wife, Joan. She is an anonymised case research in her personal guide, a woman of eleven who is sent to boarding college because her father are not able to bear to allow her reside with her mom and new spouse, while her older sister escaped to drama school and much younger sister stayed with mum.

“I felt I would vanished,” says the little one in the guide. She does not know whether she survived the trauma, she told the Guardian. “We in no way know, do we, due to the fact you never know how you would have been,” she explained. “Early trauma can depart folks sensitive to stress later on on in their daily life, and I believe I am a person who demonstrates that. I’m not a laid-back kind of man or woman.”

Penelope Leach denies her new childcare guide is an attack on fathers

FDA Denies Court Request To Define “Natural”

by Prolonged Island Attorney Paul A. Lauto, Esq./www.liattorney.com

The FDA has failed to formally define the word ”Natural” as it applies to foods. As a outcome, there is growing litigation across the country concerning shoppers currently being misled by meals labels employing the words “All All-natural,” “Natural” and “100% Organic.”  This is particulary true relative to genetically modified foods that claims to be “Natural.”

Presently, 3 federal judges presiding above three different situations are dealing with this really situation.  Rather than determine themselves as to what constitutes “Natural” and possibly stepping on the toes of the FDA, these judges temporarily stayed every single action pending a response from the FDA as to just what “Natural” implies.

In the FDA letter of response dated January 6, 2014 and signed by the Assistant Commissioner For Policy Leslie Kux, the FDA boldly refused the court’s request.  The FDA stated that they “Decline… to make a determination at this time relating to regardless of whether and underneath what situations food merchandise containing ingredients created employing genetically engineered elements might or may not be labeled ‘Natural’.”  In addition, the FDA stated that that they could not honor the court’s request as they have limited sources, far more crucial issues to attend to and if they did determine to define the word “Natural,” they would not likely do so in the context of litigation.  Meanwhile, the FDA is currently taking into consideration the Grocery Producer Association’s (GMA’s) petition to label GM foods as “Natural” (See our January three, 2014 Scales of Justice site at www.liattorney.com/scales-of-justice.html).

There is something critically wrong, when a nation that is in the midst of a deep recession, spends possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on litigation to determine the definition of the word Organic.  Ostensibly to the prudent mind, meals that is genetically engineered can not reasonably be regarded as All-natural.  In truth, 1 could simply argue that gentically modified meals are the antithesis of what is Organic.  Unfortunately, the controlling element right here is not reasonableness, but instead is greed.  The FDA could have and ought to have put an end to this entire matter, by basically defining the word “Natural” as most sensible people would.  As an alternative, the FDA when once again has failed to safeguard American shoppers by picking to permit the word “Natural” to stay meaningless in the world of foods.

Prolonged Island Lawyer
Paul A. Lauto, Esq.

www.liattorney.com

FDA Denies Court Request To Define “Natural”