EU Puppets On A Pharma String

There is an enlightening article at HuffPo describing an EU approach which won't surprise we jewel robbers.

Let us take an example: a current and apparently very technical affair sheds some light on the complexity of the European machinery and how this complexity can be used by private interests to hijack Europe. The case concerns ORPHACOL, a medicine for the treatment of two extremely rare and serious types of orphan liver disease which can be life-threatening, often very soon after birth, if not treated. This medicine is a product of academic clinical research of a hospital in Paris. A marketing authorization was requested to make it available not only in France but all over Europe. 

Despite more than 20 years of use in France, despite the unanimously positive opinion of the European Medicine Agency's (EMA), despite a qualification of the medicine as having a "notable public health interest," despite the repeated expression of a favorable opinion from Member States, the marketing authorization was refused by the European Commission. 

The European Commission has no scientific expertise whatsoever. It systematically follows the opinions of European Agencies and expert committees of the Member States. In the history of centralized marketing authorization of medicines, it is the first time that a series of scientific opinions are not followed suit by the European Commission.

It may have been the first time, but certainly not the last. Nor, in fact, is it anywhere near as damaging as the worst example.

This unprecedented case must lead to the question: Why? What are the motives of the European Commission and who stands to benefit from these protracted procedures and refusals? 

As I have raised at the European Parliament during several committee meetings, everything leads to the conclusion that the aim is to favor an (American) pharmaceutical company that has belatedly requested a marketing authorization for a similar medicine.

The EU in hock to pharmaceutical interests? Say it ain't so!

Now, this was written by lefty EU parliament member Gilles Pargneaux, and was prefaced with a couple of paragraphs which seemed to imply that the resignation of John Dalli was somehow the fault of tobacco lobbying rather than a bribe which was definitely solicited by Dalli's closest political ally.

Of course, Dalli's tobacco products directive was a disgraceful abuse of scientific evidence in its own right, as well as a document which wilfully treated EU citizens who responded with utter contempt.

Of the citizens who submitted their opinions, more than eight out of ten, 84 percent, support lifting the export ban on snus. 86 percent of government representatives and 74 percent of industry representatives wish to lift the ban. Only among lobbyists and NGOs is there a slim majority, 56 percent, who want to keep the ban on snus. 

The EU Commission, however, dismisses a significant portion of the responses from the 82,000 citizens on the grounds that two-thirds are from Italy and Poland, where tobacco merchants organised petitions. 

But even if we exclude these two countries, the majority is still for lifting the export ban on snus, 10-6, when respondents are broken down by country. 

DN's review of the 400 responses in this group shows that even among the responses from parliamentarians, municipalities, government agencies and ministries a large majority, 71 percent, support lifting the export ban. 

Even when only EU governments and ministries are included, there is still no majority against snus, but rather 3-3.

Yet the EU tobacco products directive still concluded that snus should remain banned ... to the relief of the pharmaceutical industry and the detriment of the hundreds of thousands of people (by the EU's own estimates) who will die as a result of alternatives being restricted. And that's not adding in Dalli's proposal to effectively ban e-cigs too.

The European Commission's health directorate claims to have received responses from governments who in other ways support the ban on snus, but refuses to show them.

But that, apparently, is democracy in action and perfectly acceptable. Not a whisper will be raised about it.

Listen, Buster, while we can all agree that your example is appalling, if you want to talk about how pharma interests are buying the EU, it might be worth pointing an accusatory finger at Dalli's directive which is now being hastily bludgeoned through the procedures before investigations of corruption have concluded.

Notwithstanding, he does raise an interesting point. Who exactly is running the EU? Vast business interests seem to be pulling strings in the Commission, and - contrary to daft claims from venal fantasists in the tobacco control industry - all indicators tend to point to big pharma as the puppeteers.

A Great Day For Italy!

As if to further prove that e-cigs are now big business rather than a cottage industry, if you were eagle-eyed you may have noticed a pitch-long advert which appeared repeatedly on animated hoardings during today's Six Nations Italy v France match.

Click to enlarge and look for the simple message "Fumare Digitale - Smokie's". This is their website.

Try as anti-smokers might to appease their pharma masters by producing junk science and outrageous lies, e-cigs continue to gain global recognition. If not for the tobacco control industry's corrupt chums at the EU, these clever little devices would be set to stomp all over the nicotine market like Andy Ripley running at a full back from St Stephens' Elementary second XV in 1972.

Forza Smokie's, I say, and congratulazioni!.

UPDATE An excellent article at the ECITA blog describes how this global phenomenon is now going pleasantly viral. Do go have a read.

Let's Quadruple The Scope Of The War On Drugs

Some statist lunacy for a Saturday night from ReasonTV.

200 B&H and a solicitor please, white van man. Good grief. 

Link Tank 02/02

And now for something not remotely different.

Cuba ready to end the 50 year ban on professional boxing

Is Bloomberg the Machiavelli of our time?

Health Canada and Canadian Lung Association bizarrely want to kill people

Paternalism goes fizzy pop

Man bites dog! South Australia considers relaxing a ban on wine in supermarkets

The Fawlty Towers that is the BBC

Beer: Is there nothing it can't do?

Clicking online ads 182 times more likely to infect your compute than porn

Seven dangerous myths about weight loss

Lost homing pigeons

And an older link well worth a read ...

A glimpse of our temperance future from a century ago?

A Truth Becomes Even More Inconvenient

For a Friday chuckle, shall we have more fun with some of the tobacco control industry's finest fantasists?

You may remember I've mentioned Joy Townsend before. She is a member of ASH's editorial board despite not possessing even the most tenuous grip of basic economics.

BBC: There must be a tipping point where you are forcing poorer people to buy their cigarettes without paying duty. 

Joy Townsend: Well, it's very interesting because [...] the tobacco companies always say that. If the tax goes up, this is going to increase smuggling. And they say it, it's one of their many deceits as it's not true.

Now, you could believe she is an 'expert' in financial affairs if you like. You know, fiscal pressures on supply and how they affect buying patterns, that sort of thing. In Joy's case, she believes that price rises are irrelevant; smokers will continue to buy from the same sources ... or quit. It's really that story-book simple in her world.

Or, you could trust the Independent's business correspondent, Nick Goodway.

Two distinct messages come out of Imperial Tobacco's latest trading update. The first is that cash-strapped smokers are turning to the black market in numbers probably not seen since the Second World War.

Unlike ASH propaganda, trading updates will be pored over by market analysts for whom inaccurate information might mean the difference between millions earned and millions lost - none of that 'peer review' getting your mates to give it the once over crap. Claims from listed companies - quite the opposite of junk stats burbled by unchallenged professional anti-smokers - are tested to destruction for veracity.

According to Imps, the last few weeks have seen the proportion of cigarettes smoked in the UK which have not had any tax or duty charged on them shoot up to 20 per cent from just 16 per cent late last year. 

That means the Chancellor, George Osborne, is missing out on one in five fags smoked. The cost to the Treasury is now well above £3bn a year. He should now start worrying about the diminishing returns he is getting, having added an extra 70p on a packet through his last two Budgets.

The 16 per cent figure matches that reported by the Sun in October.

And official statistics?

HMRC data shows that tobacco duty raised £9.1bn in 2010, £9.6bn in 2011 and an estimated £9.7bn in 2012. Could 2013 be the first time total tobacco duty raised actually falls?

Err, don't those duty receipt figures - considering smoker prevalence has flatlined in those years while tobacco duty has soared like never before - show categorically that illicit trade must have increased as a result? There is, after all, no possible other conclusion even for the likes of Townsend.

In fact, so worried are the government about the increase in illicit trade - which hasn't happened according to tobacco control, remember - that they are setting up an inquiry according to The Times.

A parliamentary committee is to investigate the illicit trade in tobacco for the first time. 

The intention of the Home Affairs Select Committee to launch an inquiry into the black market comes as the world’s fourth-largest tobacco company warned yesterday that first-half adjusted operating profit would be dented by “increasing levels of illicit trade” in Europe.

Which is kinda funny when you consider this tweet.

UK tobacco tax rises followed by falls in illegal tobacco use. @batpress how can this be true? cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/ne…
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) October 22, 2012

The answer, cup cake, is that CRUK's arrant nonsense wasn't 'true' in any sense of the word, mostly because  they were using two year old figures to describe the effects of current year taxation.

Sadly, economic truth is an uncomfortable concept for tobacco controllers ... I wonder if they still believe in the tooth fairy?

Those Nutty Germans, Eh?

Remember we were told that it was only "basket case" nations who object to plain packaging of tobacco?

Basket case & corrupt nations (Zimbabwe etc) to launch WTO attack on Australia's #plainpack law in WTO.tinyurl.com/6qjnkoc
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) March 6, 2012

Well, joining with the 34 countries to have already complained to the World Trade Organisation about Australia's law - the largest contingent in the history of the WTO, by the way -  it seems there are more. New Zealand are also daft enough to consider the idea and have met resistance of their own (paywall).

Hostility to plain packaging laws mounts

More countries in a major trading block have put their hostility to New Zealand's plain cigarette packaging proposals on the record. 

Italy, Poland, Germany and Spain are the latest to express opposition to laws requiring tobacco to be sold in plain, unbranded packaging.- raising their concerns at the latest meeting of an influential committee of the EU. 

Their concern was lodged with the EU Market Access Advisory as the government continues to weigh up whether or not to follow Australia and introduce the laws here (in NZ).

Tsk. Typical, isn't it? Just when you want to get something done around the place and those world-renowned insane crooks in Berlin and Madrid go and stick their oar in.

"One body of thought says that if New Zealand were to introduce plain packaging then manufacturers would have to cease using their trademarks and that would represent a failure to provide adequate protection for those assets, [Food and Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich] says. 

"That could make us in breach of the trade agreements and expose us to dispute proceedings at the World Trade Organisation. The resulting damage to our reputation as a good, reliable trading partner would be huge and the impact on our export income incalculable. 

"I sometimes wonder if this occurs to public health activists who blindly call for plain packaging as if it's some sort of magic wand that will solve all our ills."

Of course it doesn't, Katherine. They have bigger fish to fry with far more calm, balanced - and in no way 'basket case' - proposals of their own.

Next generation/tobacco pack warnings to incorporate scratch n' sniff tabs with cadarverine 2go with gangrene image? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putrescine
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) December 20, 2012

H/T Two, count 'em, two NZ jewel thieves via e-mail

The Minimum Alcohol Pricing Folly: Meal Deals

Look, we all know minimum alcohol pricing is a pretty stupid idea which will have little or no effect on binge-drinking while punishing responsible drinkers along with 'irresponsible' ones. It is also incredibly regressive considering one of the features designed specifically into the policy is for it to aggressively attack the less well off.

These are all givens unless you're paid to come up with absurd 'science' - peer reviewed by your chums - which is about as grounded in real life experience as a lion, a witch and a wardrobe.

However, if you shop at Marks and Spencer, the Scottish government wants to assure you that you won't be affected by minimum pricing or a ban on drinks promotions. You see, their 'meal for a tenner' deal offers wines usually in the region of six or seven quid accompanied with a main meal, side dish and dessert for just ten roundel nuggets. That could be seen as a discounted drinks promotion and/or selling alcohol beneath the minimum price, no?

Well, no. Because, fearing the headlines, the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon boldly stepped in to protect M&S customers (who, a cynic might say, tend to be more likely to vote than those who shop at Aldi).

I also have concerns about the part of the amendment that relates to meal deals, which we know are available from some prominent supermarket chains. We have all taken the view that we should encourage people to eat when they drink. Indeed, when the cabinet secretary was questioned in the chamber, she said that she did not expect meal deals to be captured by the bill. 

I am on record—and I will go on record again today—as saying that it is not our intention to ban the Marks and Spencer’s meal deal, for example.

So that's all right then. If you offer food with the alcohol, Bob's your uncle, you're exempt!

Since there is no law on minimum food pricing (yet), you can imagine the consternation if other supermarkets began to sell one of their store-made deli pizzas along with a slab of Carlsberg for 1p over the minimum unitary alcohol price, can't you? It will handily bypass the regulations, as would substituting the pizza for a microwave spag bol ready meal or two.

Likewise, if Cameron is to head off the inevitable 'Mr Angry of Tunbridge Wells' criticism which would result from a ban of the M&S meal deal, his wrong-headed crusade to install minimum pricing will have to involve intricate and absurd policy exemptions and loopholes (and junk science, natch) of heroic proportions. I dunno, perhaps the food may be required to reach a fixed level of nutrition. Tuscan mixed bean risotto is encouraged, but a not pack of Birds Eye burgers . Or maybe only certain alcohol will be 'acceptable' to be offered with it? Chablis OK, Strongbow not? The mind boggles.

It's almost like they're storing up future legislation to busy themselves with - paid for by our taxes - in the unlikely event that the EU allow them to proceed in the first place.

Well, they're going to have to blame something when it makes bugger all difference, aren't they?