Tag: Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Sackler money to go towards reducing overdose deaths

Volume 401, Issue 10392  ||  10 June 2023  

WORLD REPORT  A US $6 billion settlement must help to expand treatment access, harm reduction programmes, and recovery services. Susan Jaffe reports.

Federal, state and local governments along with community organisations may soon receive an infusion of US$6 billion to fight the opioid epidemic, including at least $775 million for victims and their families, after a federal appeals court approved a bankruptcy settlement for Purdue Pharma and its founders, the multi-billionaire Sackler family. However, in a controversial move last month, the court also restored protections for the Sacklers from civil lawsuits, despite accusations that their illegal schemes to boost sales of the company’s strongly addictive pain killer, OxyContin (oxycodone), vastly increased their wealth. But without this shield, the agreement would have remained mired in court challenges. [Continued here.] …

Will Trump snuff out e-cigarettes?

Volume 394       Number 10213     30 November 2019   
WORLD REPORT President Trump promised to ban flavoured e-cigarettes, but 11 weeks later, they are still on the shelves. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington. 
When US President Donald Trump announced a plan on Sept 11 to prohibit the sale of most flavoured electronic cigarettes, more than 450 people in the USA had a mysterious lung disease associated with vaping, and six had died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The ban would be finalised within 30 days, said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
The number of cases of the lung disease has since soared to 2290, as of Nov 20, in 49 states, Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands. 47 e-cigarette smokers (vapers) have died, according to the CDC. However, as this report went to press, officials from the Trump administration would not disclose when the promised ban would be issued.
…The decision [to implement] a nationwide ban is up to President Trump. “It is a chain of command”, said Robert Califf, a professor of cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine and the FDA commissioner under Trump and former President Barack Obama. “The commissioner reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services [HHS]and the secretary reports to the president. FDA policies are de facto policies of the Executive Branch, so if the HHS secretary or president chooses to do so, they can intercede.”  [Continued here]  
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