1 February 2023

International

US: Smoking in pregnancy has declined by a third since 2016

BAT: smokes bloke must prep burns unit for independence

Ten donors gave 77% of total political donations in lead-up to last Australian election

International

US: Smoking in pregnancy has declined by a third since 2016

Rates of smoking during pregnancy have fallen by 36% since 2016, a new report finds. According to the latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the percentage of pregnant women who smoked decreased from 7.2% in 2016 to 4.6% in 2021. 

The new data comes from a national database which is sourced, in part, by information provided by U.S. mothers around the time of their deliveries.

Researchers led by the NCHS' Joyce Martin reported that "the percentage of mothers who smoked during pregnancy declined across all maternal age groups between 2016 and 2021." Declines were seen regardless of race or ethnicity and they occurred across the nation.

Overall, Martin's team calculated that rates of smoking during pregnancy fell by an average of 8% per year between 2016 and 2021. The pandemic year of 2020-2021 brought a particularly steep decline of 16%, they noted. Mothers under 30 saw the steepest declines. For those under 20, the rate of smoking while pregnant was cut nearly in half (47%) over the study period. However, even in the face of that decline, younger women are still more likely to smoke during a pregnancy than their older peers, the study authors noted. Where a woman lived in America appeared to matter, with wide variance observed between states.

While smoking during pregnancy appears to be at an all-time low, more must be done to safeguard women and newborns, experts say.

Source: Medical Xpress, 31 January 2023

See also: CDC - Declines in Cigarette Smoking During Pregnancy in the United States, 2016–2021

BAT: smokes bloke must prep burns unit for independence

The Financial Times’ business and finance column, Lex, discusses the appointment of Luciano Comin as British American Tobacco’s (BAT) first director of “combustibles”.

The article argues that whilst BAT is pursuing “a two-track model”, of cigarettes and “non-combustible” nicotine products, cigarettes still make up, more than 83% of BAT’s revenues, according to 2022 estimates. 

Lex concludes, “BAT itself only expects break-even for its non-burning [cigarettes] and vapes sometime around 2025 […] In time, BAT may be able to split off its cigarettes business. The longer it takes, the nearer complete runoff will be and the lower the value of the business. Comin needs to ready combustibles for an independent future.”

Source: Financial Times (Paywalled), 31 January 2023

Ten donors gave 77% of total political donations in lead-up to last Australian election

Political donations from fossil fuel, gambling and alcohol companies all increased in the lead-up to the Australian federal election, adding to ongoing concerns about the influence of these industries in politics.

The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education chief executive, Caterina Giorgi, said she was concerned by the increase in donations from gambling and alcohol companies and called for them to be banned, given links to social harms.

One of the biggest online sports gambling companies, SportsBet, donated $278,000 to the three major parties last financial year. Tabcorp donated $216,000 and the Star Entertainment Group, which was found unfit to hold a gambling licence in Queensland in October, donated $212,000 to major parties. “The Labor and Liberal parties exclude tobacco donations. They could extend this to alcohol and gambling companies tomorrow if they wanted to,” Giorgi said. “Like tobacco, alcohol and gambling cause significant health and social harms to Australians.”

Tobacco giant Philip Morris declared donations of $55,000 each to both the Nationals and the Liberal Democrats.

Source: The Guardian, 1 February 2023