Tag: brand safety-nsf tobacco

First professional female athlete diagnosed with degenerative brain disease CTE | CNN

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Brisbane, Australia
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Scientists in Australia have diagnosed the world’s first case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in a professional female athlete, with implications for millions of girls and women who play contact sport.

Heather Anderson, an Australian Football League (AFL) player, was found to have low-stage CTE during an autopsy by scientists at the Australian Sports Brain Bank, whose peer-reviewed findings were published last week in the medical journal Acta Neuropathologica.

CTE is a neurodegenerative disease that can occur after repeated traumatic brain injuries or hits to the head, with or without a concussion, and to date it has only been diagnosed in professional male athletes.

But the rise of women’s participation in the same sports over the past two decades means they too are susceptible, the paper said, and especially so given research indicates that women are more vulnerable to concussion than men.

“Colleagues overseas been watching the professionalization of women’s contact sports over the last 10 years, and the surge in popularity and surge in participation by women in contact sports, so we’ve all been sort of thinking sooner or later, this disease is going to pop up,” said neuropathologist Michael Buckland, the paper’s co-author.

“It’s a bit like smoking and lung cancer. Early on lung cancer was enormous in men … and then women took up smoking in equal numbers. Then 20 years later, there was a big surge in women’s lung cancer,” said Buckland, a clinical associate professor at the University of Sydney.

“So I think we’re at the start of seeing the consequences of that surge in participation, both at the amateur and professional level.”

Anderson started playing football when she was five years old and went on to play contact sport for 18 years across two codes – AFL and rugby league – before her death by suicide at 28 last November, according to the paper.

Her professional career included 8 games over the 2017 season with AFL Club the Adelaide Crows, before she suffered a shoulder injury that ended her sporting career. She also worked as a medic for the Australian Defence Force.

Originally from Darwin, Anderson was known for wearing a bright pink helmet on the pitch so her vision-impaired mother could see her play. Scientists say helmets and headbands can prevent skull fractures but don’t keep the brain from moving around inside the skull when someone is hit.

During her career, Anderson had one confirmed concussion, and suffered another suspected four, according to her family, who donated her brain to the Australian Sports Brain Bank for more answers as to why she died.

According to the paper, Anderson had no known history of alcohol or non-prescription drug abuse and had not exhibited any signs of depression or unusual behavior in the months before her death.

“While there are insufficient data to draw conclusions on any association between CTE and manner of death, suicide deaths are not uncommon in the cohorts where CTE is sought at autopsy,” the paper said.

Buckland said Anderson’s diagnosis shows women’s contact sports also need CTE minimization plans to reduce players’ exposure to cumulative head injuries, and those plans need to start at the junior level.

“I don’t think any child should be playing the contact version of a sport before high school,” he said. Other ways to reduce exposure include restricting contact during training, playing just one contact sport, and taking time off after a game when players have suffered hits, he said.

Awareness of the risks of head injury in sport has been growing over the past two decades, and scientists are still working to examine the impact of repeated knocks on the brain.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says “the research to date suggests that CTE is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, and repeated hits to the head, called subconcussive head impacts.”

Repeated knocks can lead to the degeneration of brain tissue and an unusual buildup of a protein called tau, which is associated with symptoms such as memory loss, confusion, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, impaired judgment and suicidal behavior.

In the United States, the most recent research from the Concussion Legacy Foundation and Boston University’s CTE Center found that nearly 92% of 376 former NFL players who were studied were diagnosed with the brain disease. It’s also been found in the brains of former boxers, and ice hockey and soccer players.

In Australia, lawyers representing dozens of former professional AFL players have filed a class action suit against the Australian Football League (AFL), seeking compensation for injuries caused by alleged negligence.

The AFL has acknowledged a link between head trauma and CTE and says it’s committed to mitigating the risks. It was one of dozens of parties to provide submissions to an Australian government inquiry into the issue that is due to report on August 2.

The AFL Player’s Association, which represents the athletes, is pushing for greater support for current and former players, many of whom are living with the impact of successive brain injuries.

But Buckland said with so many other competing priorities, including broadcast rights and ticket sales, the industry can’t be expected to self-regulate, and an outside body needs to set the rules to ensure they’re followed.

CTE has been diagnosed in people as young as 17, but symptoms usually don’t appear until years later.

In 2019, about 15% of all US high school students reported one or more sports- or recreation-related concussions in the previous year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Boys’ football, girls’ soccer and boys’ ice hockey were the sports with the highest concussion rates, according to the study.

Buckland said what’s most needed is a shift in attitudes, so that it’s no longer encouraged or even acceptable to expose children to activities where repeated head injuries are part of the game.

“It’s more than just a medical problem, it’s a sociological problem, as well. How do we change society? I think in the long run, it’ll be like smoking. (Stopping) smoking has taken generational change, and I think that’s what we’re looking at here.”

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July 4, 2023
Murder of Vermont woman solved after more than 50 years using DNA found on a cigarette and the victim’s clothing | CNN

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CNN
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More than 50 years after Rita Curran’s roommate found her strangled to death in her room, police in Vermont say they have identified the killer using DNA found on a cigarette butt and Curran’s clothing.

Investigators identified William DeRoos, a man who lived in Curran’s Burlington apartment building, as the person responsible with the help of advances in DNA technology and genetic genealogy, police in Vermont’s most populous city announced Tuesday.

DeRoos died of a drug overdose in San Francisco in 1986, police said. The case is now closed.

On the night of the July 1971 killing, DeRoos, who lived with his wife two floors above Curran, had a fight with his spouse and left their apartment to “cool down,” according to a Burlington police investigation report.

Curran, 24, was later found dead, severely beaten after apparently having put up a “vicious struggle,” a detective wrote at the time. Investigators are now “unanimously certain” DeRoos was responsible, the report released Tuesday says.

But when investigators questioned DeRoos and his wife the next morning, the couple said they had been together all night and didn’t hear or see anything. After police left, DeRoos told his wife if they were questioned again, she should not admit that he had left the apartment “or they would go after him” because he had a criminal history, police said during a news conference Tuesday.

A break in the case finally came in 2014 when a DNA profile was extracted from a cigarette butt that had been found next to Curran’s body, Detective Lt. James Trieb said at the news conference. Though the profile was submitted to a national criminal database for DNA, he said, no matches were made. That meant the person with that DNA likely never had genetic material entered into the database, possibly because the person didn’t have a felony conviction.

In 2019, Trieb reopened the case and decided to take a new approach.

Instead of having a single detective work the cold case alone – the department’s usual strategy – he treated the crime as if it had just been committed, bringing in a team of detectives and expert technicians to review and discuss it, his investigation report says.

The team began retesting evidence, Trieb said, and decided to analyze the cigarette DNA using genetic genealogy – a process that uses DNA databases for genealogy research to identify possible family members of the person whose DNA is unmatched.

An outside genetic genealogy expert then concluded that the cigarette DNA had strong connections to relatives of DeRoos, both on the paternal and maternal sides.

“She was certain that it was William DeRoos” who put his DNA on the cigarette, the police report says.

Why your DNA may be solving cold cases

Investigators then found a living half-brother of DeRoos who was willing to provide a DNA sample, and that sample bolstered the conclusion that the cigarette DNA belonged to DeRoos, the report says.

Finally, investigators found that DNA left on Curran’s ripped house coat also matched the DNA on the cigarette butt, the report reads. Investigators re-interviewed his then-wife, who admitted that she had lied about DeRoos’ alibi.

At the news conference, acting Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said the day was “filled with mixed emotions.”

“Ultimately, those emotions are ones of relief, of pride for me (and) for this department, but mostly of gratitude to a family that has been through an incredible ordeal for more than half a century,” he said.

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February 22, 2023
Republican AGs sue ATF over new rule regulating pistol-stabilizing braces | CNN Politics

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CNN
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A coalition of primarily GOP-led led states sued the Biden administration Thursday in an effort to block a new federal rule that subjects pistol-stabilizing braces to additional regulations, including higher taxes, longer waiting periods and registration.

The rule, announced earlier this year by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, went into effect on January 31. Gun control proponents have argued that stabilizing braces effectively transform a pistol into a short-barreled rifle, which is heavily regulated under the National Firearms Act.

But in the lawsuit filed by 25 Republican state attorneys general, a Second Amendment advocacy coalition and two of its members, and a disabled gun owner who uses the stabilizing braces, the plaintiffs argue the regulations are “arbitrary and capricious” and are not covered by the 1934 law or the Gun Control Act of 1968.

“The rule regulates pistols and other firearms equipped with stabilizing braces, even though the text, structure, history, and purpose of the NFA and GCA show that the statute does not regulate such weapons,” states the lawsuit, which names US Attorney General Merrick Garland, the ATF and its director as defendants.

ATF declined to comment on the lawsuit. CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the suit.

The coalition of states challenging the rule is led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who said Thursday during a news conference announcing the suit that the ATF’s new rule “is also another case of a federal agency not staying in its lane and doing the job the Constitution clearly delegates to Congress – writing laws.”

“Let’s call this what it is: An effort to undermine Americans’ Second Amendment rights,” he said. “This is an egregious final rule turning millions of common firearms accessories into ‘short-barreled rifles.’ This is a completely nonsensical regulation.”

According to the new rule, manufacturers, dealers and individual gun owners have 120 days to register tax-free any existing short-barreled rifles covered by the rule. They can also remove the stabilizing brace or surrender covered short-barreled rifles to the ATF, the agency said.

Restrictions on stabilizing braces have been hotly debated after they were proposed by the ATF in 2020, when the bureau suggested a new rule that would regulate pistol braces under the NFA. The 2020 proposal sparked a major backlash from groups such as the National Rifle Association.

The regulations challenged on Thursday were given new life in 2021 after pistols with stabilizing braces were used in mass shootings in Boulder, Colorado, and in Dayton, Ohio. At the time, Garland unveiled several proposals aimed at curbing gun violence, including reupping the restriction on pistol braces.

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February 9, 2023
Most US adults support banning sales of all tobacco products, CDC survey says | CNN

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CNN
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More than half of US adults support ending the sale of all tobacco products, according to a new study led by researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and nearly two-thirds said they support banning menthol cigarette sales.

The poll, published Thursday in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, included 6,455 US adults surveyed in 2021 – before the US Food and Drug Administration proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.

Although cigarette smoking has declined in recent decades, it remains the leading cause of preventable disease, disability and death in the US, where an estimated 30.8 million adults currently smoke.

Support for proposals to ban tobacco sales was lower among current tobacco users, according to the survey. More than a third of current smokers supported banning menthol cigarette sales, and more than a quarter supported banning all tobacco sales.

The FDA is still considering its proposed ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.

“The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement when the proposal was announced. “Additionally, the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.”

In the new study, researchers reported widespread support for a menthol ban across demographic groups.

“Our findings are generally consistent with previous research showing support for menthol cigarette sales prohibitions, including among population groups historically targeted by unjust marketing practices and with a high prevalence of menthol cigarette use (eg, non-Hispanic Black adults),” they wrote in the study.

Experts say menthol – the last flavor allowed in cigarettes – makes smoking easier to start and harder to quit. The additive can mask the harshness and irritation of tobacco, making cigarettes more appealing to young people and those who have never used tobacco products. It also enhances the effect of nicotine in the brain, making tobacco products even more addictive.

Research has shown that tobacco products, especially those with menthol, are disproportionately marketed to youth, racial and ethnic minorities, lower-income people and those who identify as LGBTQ+, all of whom are more likely to use these products and develop tobacco-related health problems.

“The science is clear: Menthol cigarettes have an adverse impact on public health and have no public health benefits as compared to non-menthol cigarettes,” American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown said in a statement last year. “They increase the likelihood and degree of addiction among youth smokers, elevating the number of premature deaths from tobacco use. Their removal from the market would have enormous benefits for public health in this country.”

One study published in 2021 estimated that a menthol cigarette ban in the US would result in a 15% reduction in smoking as early as 2026 and up to 650,000 lives saved within 40 years.

Many parts of the country have started moving in this direction. As of February 2022, at least 145 US communities prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes and other flavored products. Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach, California, were the first cities to prohibit all tobacco sales.

The study authors say public support can continue to be an influential factor in the acceleration of policy adoption.

“These findings can inform federal, state, and local efforts to prohibit all tobacco product sales, including menthol cigarettes, reduce tobacco use and tobacco-related disparities, and advance health equity.”

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February 2, 2023
Justice Department announces new rule to regulate pistol-stabilizing braces | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Attorney General Merrick Garland and Steve Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), announced new regulations Friday that would subject pistol-stabilizing braces to additional regulations, including higher taxes, longer waiting periods and registration.

Gun control proponents argue that stabilizing braces – which can be attached to pistols – effectively transform a pistol into a short-barreled rifle, which are heavily regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA).

The rule will go into effect as soon as it is published in the Federal Register.

“Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to stricter legal requirements,” Garland said Friday during a call with reporters to outline the new rule. “Policy makers understood then what we know is still true today. Short-barreled rifles present a deadly combination: They are easier to conceal than rifles, but they are more powerful and lethal than pistols.”

“The final rule submitted today makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers and individuals cannot evade the important public safety protections passed by Congress simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles,” he said.

According to the Justice Department, manufacturers, dealers and individual gun owners have 120 days to register tax-free any existing short-barreled rifles covered by the rule. They can also remove the stabilizing brace or surrender covered short-barreled rifles to the ATF, the department said.

“This rule enhances public safety … and helps ensure compliance with the firearms laws that Congress passed almost a century ago,” Dettelbach said on the same call. The rule makes clear, Dettelbach said, that “when pistols are accessorized with certain stabilizing braces, those pistols are converted into rifles” and should be treated as short-barreled rifles under the law.

Restrictions on stabilizing braces have been hotly debated after they were proposed by the ATF in 2020, when the bureau suggested a new rule that would regulate pistol braces under the NFA. The 2020 proposal sparked a major backlash from the groups such as the National Rifle Association.

Republican lawmakers also spoke out against the proposal and sent a letter to then-Attorney General William Barr saying that the proposed regulation was “alarming and jeopardizes law abiding gun owners across the country.” The ATF withdrew the proposed regulation after the letter was released.

The proposal was given new life in 2021 after shooters in Boulder, Colorado, and in Dayton, Ohio, used pistols with stabilizing braces. At the time, Garland unveiled several proposals aimed at curbing gun violence, including reupping the restriction on pistol braces.

“These requirements are important public safety measures because they regulate the transfer of these dangerous weapons and help ensure they do not end up in wrong hands,” the Justice Department said at the time. “The proposed rule would clarify when these attached accessories convert pistols into weapons covered by these heightened regulations.”

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January 13, 2023
Juul seeks authorization on a new vape it says can verify a user’s age. Here’s how it works | CNN Business

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CNN
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E-cigarette company Juul Labs is seeking US authorization to sell a “next-generation” vape with age verification capabilities in the United States.

To verify a user’s age, the proposed vape pairs with a phone app, requiring a customer to either upload their government ID and a real-time selfie or input personal information and allow a third-party database to verify their identity, according to a Juul spokesperson.

A unique Pod ID chip within the Juul device can also detect counterfeit cartridges made by other companies, many of which have flooded the market with illegal fruity flavors that appeal to minors.

The mission of the new platform is twofold, according to the company: Encourage adult smokers to switch from combustible cigarettes to e-cigarettes while restricting underage access.

The legal age to purchase e-cigarettes in the United States is 21.

“We look forward to engaging with FDA throughout the review process while we pursue this important harm-reduction opportunity,” Juul’s Chief Regulatory Officer Joe Murillo said in a company news release.

If authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration, Juul Labs hasn’t yet decided on the name to market their new product in the US. In the UK and Canada, where it’s already for sale, it’s called the JUUL2.

Advertising itself as an alternative nicotine product, Juul publicly advises that adults vape only as a replacement for combustible cigarettes.

But Juul has a troubled history in US markets.

“They were the spark that ignited the flame,” said Robin Koval, CEO of the nonprofit Truth Initiative, organizers of the nation’s largest campaign for youth to quit vaping. “This is not a company known to tell the truth.”

Juul Labs has settled more than 5,000 cases brought by approximately 10,000 plaintiffs since its vaping devices initially skyrocketed in popularity in 2016, with some alleging the company deceived or failed to warn consumers about the risks of its products. The e-cigarette maker also agreed to pay $462 million to six US states and Washington, DC, in April after a lawsuit accused Juul Labs of directly promoting its products to high school students. In total, Juul Labs has agreed to pay more than $1 billion in its various legal settlements.

Juul dominated over 70% of the US e-cigarette market at its peak in late 2018. In the same year, 27% of high school students and 7.2% of middle school students said they used tobacco for one or more days in the month, according to the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

Juul is now a less favored brand among youth. When asked what e-cigarette brands they used in the past 30 days, youth e-cigarette users in the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey answered Puff Bar most frequently (29.7%), followed by Vuse (23.6%) and then Juul (22%), with the first two being disposable vaping products.

In 2019, Juul suspended all flavors other than tobacco and menthol and suspended broadcast, digital and print publication marketing.

Even with limited flavors, the FDA banned Juul products in the US last year after reviewing Juul’s applications seeking marketing authorization for their devices. The FDA determined that the applications lacked “sufficient evidence” within the toxicological profile of the vaporizers to prove that marketing the products would be in the interest of public health.

The FDA has placed the ban on hold while Juul Labs appeals.

Juul Labs submitted its most recent application to the FDA on July 19, as all e-cigarette manufacturers are required to do before their product can be marketed and sold legally in the United States. This first filing concerns just one flavor, Virginia Tobacco, with a nicotine concentration of 18 mg per mL.

Although Juul’s new platform has age verification capabilities, the company does not intend to lock all their new pods before use. For example, the Virginia Tobacco pods will not come automatically locked. The spokesperson for Juul said doing so could create “friction” for the adult smokers the tobacco flavor is most likely to target.

“If you’re an adult smoker and you go to buy a cigarette, it’s pretty easy to use the product,” a Juul spokesperson told CNN. “If you add in another barrier before product use, that creates some level of friction.”

Using the new Pod ID feature, Juul’s new vaping device could tell a Virginia Tobacco pod apart from a menthol-flavored pod. It could then require age verification to activate only the latter, according to the spokesperson.

Juul has researched other flavors that combine tobacco and menthol with fruity tones to potentially submit to the FDA following this filing. Juul currently sells the flavor Autumn Tobacco in the UK, which contains “tangy apple notes,” according to its website.

Just because e-cigarette companies are required to comply with the FDA doesn’t mean all of them do. In fact, most don’t. To date, the FDA has authorized only 23 specific e-cigarette products, all of which are tobacco flavored.

Yet more than 2.5 million US middle and high school students said they use e-cigarettes as of last year, according to the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey. Almost 85% consume fruity, candy or other flavored products, despite them being illegal.

Koval of Truth Initiative said the tobacco industry “floods the market” with products such that the FDA can’t keep up.

“It is a little bit like Whac-a-Mole for the FDA and for those of us who are trying to promote healthier behaviors for young people,” Koval said. The total number of e-cigarette brands increased by 46.2% between January 2020 and December 2022, from 184 to 269, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To gain FDA authorization for its latest platform, Juul must prove to the FDA that in aiding the public health crisis of adult smoking, it is not further exacerbating the spread of youth vaping.

“This is only the beginning of new tech being developed and refined for the US market and abroad to eliminate combustible cigarettes and combat underage use,” Juul’s Chief Product Officer Kirk Phelps said.

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April 12, 2021