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Background Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) are growing in awareness and use in the USA. They are currently unregulated as the Food and Drug Administration has yet to assert jurisdiction under its tobacco authority over these products, and a US Court of Appeals held they cannot be regulated as drugs/ delivery devices if they are not marketed for a therapeutic purpose. Observation of the current online marketplace suggests ENDS, like some nutraceutical products, are being promoted using affiliate marketing techniques using claims concerning purported health benefits. Objective This study performed a forensic analysis to characterise the relationships between online ENDS affiliate advertisements and ENDS sellers, and evaluated descriptive content on advertisements and websites to inform future policy and regulatory efforts. Methods A purposive sampling strategy was used to identify three forms of ENDS advertising. Web proxy software recorded identifiable objects and their ties to each other. Network analysis of these ties followed, as well as analysis of descriptive content on advertisements and websites identified. Results The forensic analysis included four ENDS advertisements, two linked affiliate websites, and two linked seller websites, and demonstrated a multilevel relationship between advertisements and sellers with multiple layers of redirection. Descriptive analysis indicated that advertisements and affiliates, but not linked sellers, included smoking cessation claims. Results suggest that ENDS sellers may be trying to distance marketing efforts containing unsubstantiated claims from sales. A separate descriptive analysis of 20 ENDS seller web pages indicated that the use of affiliate marketing by sellers may be widespread. Conclusions These findings support increased monitoring and regulation of ENDS marketing to prevent deceptive marketing tactics and ensure consumer safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: Describe tobacco companies' marketing strategies targeting low socioeconomic status (SES) females in the USA. METHODS: Analysis of previously secret tobacco industry documents. RESULTS: Tobacco companies focused marketing on low SES women starting in the late 1970s, including military wives, low-income inner-city minority women, 'discount-susceptible' older female smokers and less-educated young white women. Strategies included distributing discount coupons with food stamps to reach the very poor, discount offers at point-of-sale and via direct mail to keep cigarette prices low, developing new brands for low SES females and promoting luxury images to low SES African-American women. More recently, companies integrated promotional strategies targeting low-income women into marketing plans for established brands. CONCLUSIONS: Tobacco companies used numerous marketing strategies to reach low SES females in the USA for at least four decades. Strategies to counteract marketing to low SES women could include (1) counteracting price discounts and direct mail coupons that reduce the price of tobacco products, (2) instituting restrictions on point-of-sale advertising and retail display and (3) creating counteradvertising that builds resistance to psychosocial targeting of low SES women. To achieve health equity, tobacco control efforts are needed to counteract the influence of tobacco industry marketing to low-income women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Tobacco manufacturers' aggressive promotion of new smokeless tobacco products such as snus warrants a timely and effective public health response. This study tested potential countermarketing messages to discourage current and former smokers from becoming dual users of smokeless tobacco and cigarettes. Methods In a pretest-post-test experiment, 1836 adult current and recently former smokers from a national sample were randomised to view one of six antismokeless tobacco ads followed by a snus ad, to view a control ad followed by a snus ad; or to view two control ads. Perceived effectiveness of ads and actual changes in attitudes and openness to snus were compared across groups using analyses of variance. Results Some ads that were perceived as most effective did not change attitudes or openness to trying snus, and conversely, some ads not perceived as effective changed attitudes and openness to snus. Ads portraying the negative health effects of smokeless tobacco were perceived as most effective, but ads with antitobacco industry themes significantly decreased favourable attitudes toward snus. Responses to ads were different for smokers who had ever used smokeless tobacco: for this group health effects and humorous/testimonial ads were effective. Conclusions Measures of perceived effectiveness of antitobacco ads need to be augmented with measures of actual effectiveness to assess countermarketing messages. Some of the developed ads, such as ads with anti-industry themes, were effective for the overall population of smokers whereas humorous/testimonial and health effects ads were particularly effective in changing attitudes of past users of smokeless tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the conflict faced by drug manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim findings of a study it conducted clashed with its marketing effort for its new anticoagulant. Topics discussed include the confusion over whether there is a need for the German drug manufacturer to release its findings and the legal battle faced by the company from patients and families who believe that the firm should have released information about the drug's bleeding risk.

Comments that publication of research is vital for promotion but with promotion comes more responsibility, paperwork and income tax. Suggests methods for not getting published; Advice to get started without a protocol; Use of a snappy title for marketing purposes; How to ask questions in the abstract; Chance to criticise the work of reviewers in advance; Description of methods which should be in random order; Need to take a stand whether or not it is supported by the study; Misspell the name of the editor in chief.

Objective To examine the extent (if any) that cigarette stick dimension, tipping paper design and other decorative design/branding have on Australian smokers' perceptions of those cigarettes. Methods An internet survey of 160 young Australian adult ever-smokers who were shown computer images of three sets of cigarette sticksdfive sticks of different lengths and diameters (set A), five sticks with different tipping paper design (set B) and four sticks of different decorative design (set C). Branding was a between-subjects randomised condition for set C. For each set, respondents ranked sticks on most and least attractive, highest and lowest quality and strongest and weakest taste. Results Cigarette sticks were perceived as different on attractiveness, quality and strength of taste. Standard stick length/diameter was perceived as the most attractive and highest quality stick, with men more inclined to rate a slim stick as less attractive. A stick with a cork-patterned tipping paper and a gold band was seen as most attractive, of highest quality and strongest in taste compared to other tipping designs. Branded sticks were seen as more attractive, higher in quality and stronger tasting than non-branded designs, regardless of brand, although the effects were stronger for a prestige compared with a budget brand. Conclusions Characteristics of the cigarette stick affect smokers' perceptions of the attributes of those cigarettes and thus are a potential means by which product differentiation can occur. A comprehensive policy to eliminate promotional aspects of cigarette design and packaging needs to include rules about stick design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of the condition of the journal's "Thorax" publication and circulation in 1960's. About 26 papers had been published during the period that deal on physiology, pathology, and radiology. In 1969, the number of papers published has increased to 64. The journal's paid circulation was 2,423 in 1960 while in 1969 the paid circulation was 3,301.

The article provides an overview on what it takes to evaluate manuscripts to determine their suitability for publication. The author stresses that the process associated with this move is simple and interesting. He mentions the advantage of having two referees. He also asserts the aspect wherein a journal's circulation is dependent upon during 1970.

Objective To integrate information on cigarette companies' understanding and use of menthol as summarised in published research based on previously internal tobacco industry documents with results from large population-based surveys of tobacco use and other independent sources. Data sources Papers published in this supplement of Tobacco Control, together with papers identified using PubMed searches. Results Tobacco companies shaped consumer perceptions of menthol cigarettes. Menthol is not just a flavouring agent. Cigarette companies use menthol's ability to mask irritation and provide sensory effects to make menthol cigarettes appeal to youth and healthconcerned smokers, in part because menthol makes low-tar cigarettes more palatable. Consistent with targeted marketing, youths, women and African Americans disproportionately smoke menthols. There appear to be complex interactions with addictive effects of nicotine. The ubiquitous addition of menthol by tobacco companies to over 90% of all tobacco products, whether labelled 'menthol' or not, demonstrates that menthol is not simply a flavour or brand. Menthol imparts sensory characteristics to cigarettes and has a complex interaction with nicotine that affects smoking behaviour whether it is perceived or not, or whether cigarettes containing menthol are marketed as 'menthol' or not. Adding menthol increases fine particles in cigarette smoke, which have immediate adverse effects on the risk of heart attack. Conclusion Information from industry documents, confirmed by independent scientific literature, consistently demonstrates that menthol increases population harm from smoking by increasing initiation and reducing cessation in some groups. Menthol facilitates and increases smoking, which causes disease and death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream economic theory outlines four main causes of market failure and it is already well established that two of these (information failure and externalities) exist in a tobacco market. A third cause of market failure, market power, is also a serious problem in many tobacco markets. Market power--combined with unintended and often overlooked consequences of tobacco tax policies, notably that gradual increases in specific taxes may allow the industry to disguise significant price increases--has, at least in high income countries, given cigarette manufacturers considerable pricing power and profits. This paper examines ways this market failure could be addressed and proposes as a solution a system of price cap regulation wherein a cap is placed on the pre-tax cigarette manufacturers' price but not on the retail price that consumers face. Well established in the utilities industry, price cap regulation would set a maximum price that cigarette companies can charge for their product based on an assessment of the genuine costs each firm faces in its operations and an assumption about the efficiency savings it would be expected to make. Such a system would achieve three main benefits. First, it would address the problem of market failure and excess profits while simultaneously allowing current tobacco control policies, including tax and price increases, to expand--thus tax increases would remain a central tenet of tobacco control policies and retail prices could continue to increase. Second, it would increase government revenue by transferring the excess profits from the industry to the government purse. Third, it would bring numerous public health benefits. In addition to addressing market power, while simultaneously allowing tobacco control policies to expand, it could offer a means of preventing downtrading to cheaper products and controlling unwanted industry practices such as cigarette smuggling, price fixing and marketing to the young. The paper outlines in some detail how such a system might be developed in the UK, while briefly exploring how it could be applied elsewhere, including in markets with state monopolies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Little research has been done to examine whether smokers switch to illegal or roll-your-own (RYO) cigarettes in response to a change in their relative price. Objective This paper explores how relative prices between three cigarette forms (manufactured legal, manufactured illegal and RYO cigarettes) are associated with the choice of one form over another after controlling for covariates, including sociodemographic characteristics, smokers' exposure to antismoking messaging, health warning labels and tobacco marketing. Methods Generalised estimating equations were employed to analyse the association between the price ratio of two different cigarette forms and the usage of one form over the other. Findings A 10% increase in the relative price ratio of legal to RYO cigarettes is associated with a 4.6% increase in the probability of consuming RYO cigarettes over manufactured legal cigarettes (p≤0.05). In addition, more exposure to antismoking messaging is associated with a lower odds of choosing RYO cigarettes over manufactured legal cigarettes (p≤0.05). Non-significant associations exist between the manufactured illegal to legal cigarette price ratios and choosing manufactured illegal cigarettes, suggesting that smokers do not switch to manufactured illegal cigarettes as prices of legal ones increase. However, these non-significant findings may be due to lack of variation in the price ratio measures. To improve the effectiveness of increased taxes and prices in reducing smoking, policymakers need to narrow price variability in the tobacco market. Moreover, increasing antismoking messaging reduces tax avoidance in the form of switching to cheaper RYO cigarettes in Uruguay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the 'low-tar' scheme has been widely recognised as a misleading tactic used by the tobacco industry to deceive the public about the true risks of cigarette smoking, a similar campaign using the slogan of 'less harmful, low tar' was launched by the Chinese tobacco industry, that is, State Tobacco Monopoly Administration/ China National Tobacco Corporation and began to gain traction during the last decade. Despite the fact that no sufficient research evidence supports the claims made by the industry that these cigarettes are safer, the Chinese tobacco industry has continued to promote them using various health claims. As a result, the production and sales of 'less harmful, low-tar' cigarettes have increased dramatically since 2000. Recently, a tobacco industry senior researcher, whose main research area is 'less harmful, low-tar' cigarettes, was elected as an Academician to the prestigious Chinese Academy of Engineering for his contribution to developing 'less harmful, low-tar' cigarettes. The tobacco researcher's election caused an outcry from the tobacco control community and the general public in China. This paper discusses the Chinese tobacco industry's 'less harmful, low-tar' initiatives and calls for the Chinese government to stop the execution of this deceptive strategy for tobacco marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives The Spanish government has strengthened tobacco control policies since 2005, including changes in tobacco taxes. Because these changes have targeted cigarettes mainly, the tobacco industry has marketed cheaper alternative tobacco products, offering smokers the possibility to downtrade. This paper traces the evolution of patterns of demand for cigarettes and other tobacco products in Spain over the period 2005-2011 in order to assess the impact of such tax loopholes. Methods The authors use data on tobacco products prices and sales as well as changes in the structure and levels of tobacco taxes to relate tax changes to price changes and subsequent market share changes. Results Tax reforms have lifted the bottom end of the cigarette price distribution, but the industry has been successful in marketing fine-cut tobacco at cheap prices. There have been partial attempts to correct this asymmetric tax treatment, but these have not avoided a remarkable increase in the market share of fine-cut tobacco. The absence of a minimum tax on quantity for the rest of tobacco products allows the industry to place them as potential future downtrading vehicles. Conclusions In order to address public health objectives, tax policies should aim to equalise the cost of smoking across different tobacco products. Otherwise the tobacco industry can exploit tax loopholes to market cheap alternatives to cigarettes. This requires all tobacco products to bear a minimum tax on quantity, whose levels need to be adjusted in order to reflect the equivalence between different forms of smoking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This paper reviews how the tobacco industry is promoting its products online and examines possible regulation models to limit exposure to this form of marketing. Opportunities to use new media to advance tobacco control are also discussed and future research possibilities are proposed. Data sources: Published articles and grey literature reports were identified through searches of the electronic databases, PUBMED and Google Scholar using a combination of the following search terms: tobacco or smoking and new media, online media, social media, internet media, Web 2.0, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Results: A possible obstacle to fully realising the benefits of regulating tobacco marketing activities and effectively communicating tobacco control messages is the rapid evolution of the media landscape. New media also offer the tobacco industry a powerful and efficient channel for rapidly countering the denormalising strategies and policies of tobacco control. Evidence of tobacco promotion through online media is emerging, with YouTube being the most researched social media site in the tobacco control field. Conclusions: The explosive rise in Internet use and the shift to these new media being driven by consumer generated content through social platforms may mean that fresh approaches to regulating tobacco industry marketing are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on tobacco document research by analysing contemporary materials to explore how the global tobacco market has changed, how transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) are responding and the implications for tobacco control. The methods involved analysis of a variety of materials, including tobacco company annual reports, investor relations materials, financial analyst reports, market research reports and data. Once China, where TTCs have little market share, is excluded, global cigarette volumes are already declining. Nevertheless, industry profits continue to increase. This pattern is explained by the pricing power of TTCs-their ability to increase prices faster than volumes fall, a consequence of market failure. Pricing power is now fundamental to the long term future of TTCs. Consequently, and in light of growing regulations, the business model of the TTCs is changing. Product innovation is now a key marketing technique used to drive consumers to buy more expensive (ie, profitable) premium cigarettes. Contrary to established wisdom, high tobacco excise rates, particularly where increases in excise are gradual, can benefit TTCs by enabling price (profit) increases to be disguised. Large intermittent tax increases likely have a greater public health benefit. TTC investments in smokeless tobacco appear designed to eliminate competition between smokeless tobacco and cigarettes, thereby increasing the pricing power of TTCs while enabling them to harness the rhetoric of harm reduction. Monitoring TTCs can inform effective policy development. The value maximising approach of TTCs suggests that a ban on product innovation and more informed tobacco excise policies are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background When lung cancer fears emerged in the 1950s, cigarette companies initiated a shift in cigarette design from unfiltered to filtered cigarettes. Both the ineffectiveness of cigarette filters and the tobacco industry's misleading marketing of the benefits of filtered cigarettes have been well documented. However, during the 1950s and 1960s, American cigarette companies spent millions of dollars to solve what the industry identified as the 'filter problem'. These extensive filter research and development efforts suggest a phase of genuine optimism among cigarette designers that cigarette filters could be engineered to mitigate the health hazards of smoking. Objective This paper explores the early history of cigarette filter research and development in order to elucidate why and when seemingly sincere filter engineering efforts devolved into manipulations in cigarette design to sustain cigarette marketing and mitigate consumers' concerns about the health consequences of smoking.Methods Relevant word and phrase searches were conducted in the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library online database, Google Patents, and media and medical databases including ProQuest, JSTOR, Medline and PubMed. Results 13 tobacco industry documents were identified that track prominent developments involved in what the industry referred to as the 'filter problem'. These reveal a period of intense focus on the 'filter problem' that persisted from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s,featuring collaborations between cigarette producers and large American chemical and textile companies to develop effective filters. In addition, the documents reveal how cigarette filter researchers' growing scientific knowledge of smoke chemistry led to increasing recognition that filters were unlikely to offer significant health protection. One of the primary concerns of cigarette producers was to design cigarette filters that could be economically incorporated into the massive scale of cigarette production. The synthetic plastic cellulose acetate became the fundamental cigarette filter material. By the mid-1960s, the meaning of the phrase 'filter problem' changed, such that the effort to develop effective filters became a campaign to market cigarette designs that would sustain the myth of cigarette filter efficacy. Conclusions This study indicates that cigarette designers at Philip Morris, British-American Tobacco, Lorillard and other companies believed for a time that they might be able to reduce some of the most dangerous substances in mainstream smoke through advanced engineering of filter tips. In their attempts to accomplish this, they developed the now ubiquitous cellulose acetate cigarette filter. By the mid-1960s cigarette designers realised that the intractability of the 'filter problem' derived from a simple fact: that which is harmful in mainstream smoke and that which provides the smoker with 'satisfaction' are essentially one and the same. Only in the wake of this realisation did the agenda of cigarette designers appear to transition away from mitigating the health hazards of smoking and towards the perpetuation of the notion that cigarette filters are effective in reducing these hazards. Filters became a marketing tool, designed to keep and recruit smokers as consumers of these hazardous products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 2007, the Instituto Carso de la Salud-now Instituto Carlos Slim de la Salud (ICSS)-was endowed with US$500 million to focus on priority health issues in Latin America, notably issues of 'globalisation and non-communicable diseases'. ICSS was soon criticised, however, on the grounds that its funding was derived from tobacco industry profits and that its founder Carlos Slim Hélu remained an active industry principal. Collaboration with ICSS was said to run counter to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The Institute's then Executive President Julio Frenk disputed these charges. This research employs an archive of tobacco industry documents triangulated with materials from commercial, media, regulatory and NGO sources to examine the financial relations between Slim and the tobacco industry. The paper analyses Slim's continuing service to the industry and role in ICSS. It demonstrates a prima facie conflict of interest between ICSS's health mission and its founder's involvement in cigarette manufacturing and marketing, reflected on ICSS's website as a resounding silence on issues of tobacco and health. It is concluded that the reliance of international health agencies upon the commercial sector requires more robust institutional policies to effectively regulate conflicts of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which aims to record the history of the visits of scientists sponsored by tobacco industry to Australia and the news reports regarding smoking and health matters generated from the visits. The study uses systematic keyword and internal documents of tobacco industry which were both made available through the Master Settlement Agreement. The study concluded that media reports on the said issue influences people to believe the uncertainty of evidences against smoking. INSET: What this paper adds.

Objective: Post-secondary institutions provide a unique opportunity to implement and evaluate leading edge tobacco policies, while influencing a key group of young adults. To date, however, we know little about the tobacco control environment at post-secondary institutions outside the USA. Design: Telephone surveys were conducted with campus informants from 35 post-secondary institutions in Canada to evaluate tobacco control policies and the presence of tobacco marketing on campus. Main outcome measures: Tobacco marketing on campus, tobacco control policies, and attitudes towards tobacco control. Results: The findings indicate that tobacco marketing is prevalent among post-secondary institutions in Canada. Every university and half of all colleges surveyed had participated in some form of tobacco marketing in the past year. Among universities, 80% had run a tobacco advertisement in their paper and 18% had hosted a tobacco sponsored nightclub event. Tobacco control policies varied considerably between institutions. Although several campuses had introduced leading edge policies, such as campus wide outdoor smoking restrictions and tobacco sales bans, there is a general lack of awareness of tobacco issues among campus decision makers and fundamental public health measures, such as indoor smoke- free policies, have yet to be introduced in many cases. Conclusions: Post-secondary institutions in Canada remain tobacco friendly environments. Without increased direction and support from the public health community, post-secondary institutions will continue to lag behind, rather than lead current policy standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Following the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, flavoured cigarettes, including clove cigarettes, were banned based on the rationale that such cigarettes appealed to youth. However, the ban on characterising flavours was not extended to cigars. Methods This study reviewed industry documents from Kretek International, the parent company behind Djarum clove cigars, to document the changes in their marketing and production strategies following the flavour ban on cigarettes. To assess sales trends following the ban, data for clove cigar sales in the USA from 2009 to 2012 were analysed using Nielsen's Convenience Track retail scanner database. Additionally, data on tobacco imports to the USA from Indonesia were obtained from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service's Global Agricultural Trade System for the years 2008-2012. Results In anticipation of Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) flavour ban on cigarettes and recognising the regulatory advantages of cigars, Kretek International began developing Djarum clove cigars in 2007. Immediately following the flavour ban, sales of this product increased by more than 1400% between 2009 and 2012. During this same period, tobacco imports to the USA from Indonesia, a leader in clove tobacco production, shifted from cigarettes to almost exclusively cigars. Conclusions Kretek International, like other tobacco manufacturers, manipulated its products following the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act as a way to capitalise on regulatory loopholes and replace its now banned clove cigarettes. As a result, consumption of the company's Djarum clove cigars increased exponentially in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]