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** 21 September 2022
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** UK
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** Liz Truss’s chief of staff questioned by FBI in inquiry about election bribe (#1)
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** One in four people could be left without a GP within a decade, doctors claim (#2)
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** International
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** China’s “hidden epidemics”: the preventable diseases that could reshape a nation (#3)
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** Europe must resist industry efforts to cash in on energy crisis, says Al Gore (#4)
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** US: Juul sues the FDA for not releasing the documents used to justify banning e-cigarettes (#5)
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** Brussels unveils new guidelines to boost cancer screenings and reduce inequalities in EU (#6)
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** UK
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** Liz Truss’s chief of staff questioned by FBI in inquiry about election bribe

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** Liz Truss’s chief of staff has been interviewed by the FBI as part of an investigation into an alleged conspiracy to bribe an American politician and influence an election. Mark Fullbrook, the prime minister’s closest adviser, was questioned as a witness in a US Department of Justice (DoJ) and FBI investigation into the matter.

The US investigators are looking into allegations that a London-based businessman tried to bribe the governor of Puerto Rico, a United States territory. Julio Martin Herrera Velutini, a UK Conservative Party donor and the owner of the Puerto Rican bank Bancredito, is accused of bribing Puerto Rica’s governor at the time, Wanda Vazquez Garced. Federal prosecutors claim Mr Herrera wanted Ms Vazquez, a Trump-supporting Republican, to sack her financial regulator, who was investigating his bank, and replace them with someone of his choosing.

UK Electoral Commission records show that a company founded by Mr Herrera also donated £650,604 to the Conservative Party between December 2019 and June 2022.

Mr Fullbrook, who masterminded Ms Truss’s leadership campaign, was interviewed by US authorities because of his work for, and role at, CT Group, an Australian-British lobbying firm founded by Lynton Crosby. Court records in the United States allege that the alleged bribe was paid through CT Group. Mr Fullbrook was employed as the company’s chief global project officer, and prosecutors claim that he flew to Puerto Rico to meet with Vazquez Garced.

Source: The Independent, 20 September 2022
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**
See also:
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** Tobacco Tactics – Crosby Textor Group ([link removed])
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** Tobacco Tactics – Lynton Crosby ([link removed])
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Read Article ([link removed])


** One in four people could be left without a GP within a decade, doctors claim

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** Forecasts from Doctors’ Association UK suggest 16 million people in England could be left without access to a family doctor, amid growing staffing shortages. On Thursday, the new Health Secretary is expected to set out plans to boost access to GPs, following warnings that public satisfaction is the lowest on record.

Research by the Health Foundation suggests that the NHS will lose up to 8,800 full-time equivalent GPs by 2030 if current trends continue. On Wednesday, the Doctors’ Association UK said this could leave one in four people without access to a GP. In a letter to Therese Coffey, the group says that without urgent action “the NHS will become a sinking ship”.

Since her appointment, Ms Coffey has sought details on “unwarranted variation” in the NHS, including ideas on how this could be used for performance management of hospitals and GPs. The Health Secretary has promised to set out “clear expectations” of the NHS, with the Prime Minister promising “immediate action to make sure that people are able to get appointments with their GP”. On Thursday, Ms Coffey is expected to set out details of a new focus on her four priorities - “A, B, C, D – ambulances, backlogs, care, doctors and dentists” as part of efforts to avert an NHS winter crisis.

Source: The Telegraph, 21 September 2022

See also:
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** Doctors’ Association UK – Letter to Therese Coffey ([link removed])
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** The Health Foundation - Projections: General practice workforce in England ([link removed])
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** International
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** China’s “hidden epidemics”: the preventable diseases that could reshape a nation
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**
Martin Farrer, Guardian editor for the Asia Pacific timezone, discusses the “devastating impact” of the rise in non-communicable diseases in China since rapid industrialisation and economic growth began in the 1970s. Farrer states that, “along with higher wages and urban living have come ’western’ diseases such as cancer linked to very high rates of smoking, and diabetes and heart disease thanks to a richer diet, lack of exercise and high blood pressure”.

In particular, Farrer highlights the significant public health burden smoking poses in China, where “more than a third of the world’s 1.1 billion smokers live in China, where around half the male population is addicted to tobacco”. He also reports, “Smoking-related disease – which includes lung cancer, respiratory and heart disease – will kill a staggering one in three young Chinese men by 2050 according to current projections”, arguing this will likely contribute to the pre-existing “demographic crisis” in the country – the result of a “plummeting birthrate” and “rapidly ageing population”.

Farrar quotes Professor Bernard Stewart, an expert on cancer causation and professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who says, “There is no sense in which you can qualify the disaster facing China in regard to deaths from smoking”. Farrar also highlights the leading causes of death in China, “strokes, followed by heart disease, chronic pulmonary disease and then lung cancer”, all of which are strongly associated with smoking.

Farrer argues that China’s health outcomes have fallen far behind what would be expected for a country with the second-largest economy in the world; “people in China have a 14.1% chance of premature death from a non-communicable disease which places the country 76th in the health world rankings. South Korea is top on 4.7%, while the UK is 27th on 9% and the US is 44th on 11.8%”. Farrer also highlights the Chinese government’s “dependency” on cigarette tax, “which provides about 10% of the tax base via the state-controlled tobacco monopolies”, as a notable barrier to improving the country’s public health outcomes.

Source: The Guardian, 21 September 2022
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** Europe must resist industry efforts to cash in on energy crisis, says Al Gore
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**
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** European governments must push back against fossil fuel companies’ efforts to capitalise on the energy crisis by locking consumers into long-term dependence on hydrocarbons accompanied by long-term increases in greenhouse gas emissions, former US vice-president Al Gore has said. Gore accused fossil fuel companies of using “legacy networks of influence” to lobby for favourable political treatment, alleging that “they mimic the tobacco industry strategy of many decades ago — putting out false information on an industrial scale”.

At least €50bn of spending is planned by EU governments this winter on fossil fuel infrastructure and supplies after imports of oil, gas and coal from Russia plunged amid sanctions and restrictions imposed following its invasion of Ukraine.

Source: Financial Times, 21 September 2022
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** US: Juul sues the FDA for not releasing the documents used to justify banning e-cigarettes

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** Juul is suing the FDA over the agency’s refusal to disclose documents supporting its order banning the company across the US.

The vaping firm filed a complaint on Tuesday accusing the agency of invoking the “widely abused” deliberative process privilege to improperly withhold scientific materials that are “central” to understanding the basis for the 23 June sales ban.

It said the materials would show whether the FDA conducted a legally required balancing of the public health benefits and risks of its products.

Source: Daily Mail, 21 September 2022
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** Brussels unveils new guidelines to boost cancer screenings and reduce inequalities in EU

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** Yesterday, the European Commission unveiled its proposals to boost cancer screenings in the EU, recommending that three new types of cancer be screened for more systematically.

The "new EU approach to cancer screening" comes nearly two decades after Brussels first issued cancer screening recommendations with health commissioner Stella Kyriakides stressing that "much has changed" in the past 20 years as "medicine, technology have made incredible advances." The new approach aims "to ensure 90% of people in the EU who qualify for breast, cervical, and colorectal screenings are offered these screenings by 2025," Kyriakides said, in addition to reducing "unacceptable inequalities when it comes to screening".

The EU's executive also recommended that organised screenings for three additional cancers be extended. These include lung cancer testing for current heavy and ex-smokers aged 50-75, prostate cancer testing in men up to 70 on the basis of prostate-specific antigen testing, and screening for Helicobacter pylori and surveillance of precancerous stomach lesions in places with high gastric cancer incidence and death rates.

Source: Euronews, 21 September 2022
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