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E-cigarettes may soon be prescribed on the NHS to help smokers quit under radical plans by ministers to slash smoking rates in England.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has published updated guidance that paves the way for medicinally licensed e-cigarette products to be prescribed for tobacco smokers who want to stop smoking and switch to vaping instead.

The move could see England become the first country in the world to prescribe medicinally licensed e-cigarettes. Almost 64,000 people die from smoking every year. About 3.6 million, or 7% of adults in Britain, are thought to use e-cigarettes.

Doctors, medical leaders and health campaigners welcomed the move. “I am convinced this will be a gamechanger,” said Sir Norman Lamb, the former health minister who chaired the Commons science and technology committee’s inquiry into e-cigarettes in 2018. His committee concluded that there would be “significant benefit” to having medicinally licensed e-cigarettes that could be prescribed, he said.

Prof Linda Bauld, the Bruce and John Usher chair in public health at the University of Edinburgh, said it was “excellent news”.

“While there is good evidence that e-cigarettes available as consumer products can help smokers to quit, we also know that up to one in three smokers in the UK has not tried these devices,” she said.

“Smokers have concerns about safety and misperceptions about the relative risks of e-cigarettes compared with tobacco. For some, cost is also perceived as a barrier. The option of having approved devices that could be prescribed would reassure smokers about relative risks and also assist in reaching those least able to afford e-cigarettes.”

E-cigarettes contain nicotine and are not risk-free. “The liquid and vapour contain some potentially harmful chemicals also found in cigarette smoke,” the NHS says – though these chemicals are found at much lower levels in e-cigarettes.

Public health experts have also raised concerns about young people in particular becoming hooked on vaping despite never having smoked. Tobacco companies have turned to creating the devices.

However, expert reviews have concluded that regulated e-cigarettes are less harmful than smoking. A medicinally licensed e-cigarette would have to pass even more rigorous safety checks, the Department of Health and Social Care said.

Manufacturers can now approach the MHRA and submit their products to the same regulatory approvals process as other medicines available on the NHS. If an e-cigarette gets MHRA approval, doctors could then decide on a case-by-case basis whether it would be appropriate to prescribe an e-cigarette to a patient to help them quit smoking.

Dr June Raine, the chief executive of the MHRA, said the evidence was “clear” that e-cigarettes are less harmful to health than smoking tobacco and that e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking for good. “The updated guidance on licensing requirements we have published today is a strong first step towards availability of safe and effective licensed e-cigarette products.”

What are e-cigarettes and are they safe?

The NHS said the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) would have to give the green light to e-cigarettes before they could be rolled out on the health service. A spokesperson added: “The NHS will not be prescribing e-cigarettes unless Nice recommends them for use.”

Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of premature death. While rates are at record low levels in the UK, there are still about 6.1 million smokers in England. There are also alarming differences in rates across the country, with smoking rates in Blackpool (23.4%) and Kingston upon Hull (22.2%) vastly higher than rates in wealthier areas such as Richmond upon Thames (8%).

E-cigarettes were the most popular aid used by smokers trying to quit in England in 2020. The number of e-cigarette users grew from about 700,000 in 2012 to 3.6 million in 2019, falling to 3.2 million in 2020 before rising again in 2021 to 3.6 million.

Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said: “Opening the door to a licensed e-cigarette prescribed on the NHS has the potential to tackle the stark disparities in smoking rates across the country, helping people stop smoking wherever they live and whatever their background.”

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PFIZER SAYS BIDEN HAS ORDERED 50M MORE VACCINE DOSES FOR KIDS

Pfizer and BioNTech announced in a press release Thursday that they will be providing the U.S. government with 50 million additional pediatric doses of COVID-19 vaccinations.

According to the companies’ statement, the move is meant to help prepare for vaccination needs for children under the age of 5, should the vaccine eventually be approved for children that young.

Pfizer says that with the inclusion of this order of doses, the U.S. government has secured 600 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines since the start of the pandemic.

What’s next: Pfizer has stated that it expects to deliver all the doses by the end of April.

The announcement comes after a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel recommended approving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children as young as 5 on Tuesday.

The trial data for those aged 2 to less than 5 and for those aged six months to less than 2 years old is expected to be available late this year or early next year.

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US: ONE PERCENT OF ADULTS WOULD LEAVE JOB DUE TO VACCINE MANDATE: POLL

One percent of all adults in a Kaiser Family Foundation poll said they’ve left a job due to COVID-19 vaccine requirements as more workplaces institute mandates.

The KFF Vaccine Monitor for October released on Thursday determined that out of unvaccinated adults, just 5 percent left their jobs because of the requirements, “despite widespread news reports” of workplace vaccine mandates driving resignations.

Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to report knowing someone who left their job due to a vaccine mandate, with almost a quarter of all adults saying they know someone who’s quit.

A quarter of workers reported their employers instituted a COVID-19 vaccine mandate — an increase of 16 percentage points since June.

Expected mandate response: The vaccine requirements come as the Biden administration moved forward with its plan to institute a vaccine-or-test mandate for all employers with at least 100 employees.

Almost half of unvaccinated workers, 46 percent, said under that type of mandate, they would opt for weekly testing. Eleven percent said they’d most likely get the vaccine while 37 percent, representing 1 percent of all adults, said they would leave their job.

But without the weekly testing option, a majority of unvaccinated workers, at 72 percent, said they would quit their jobs, representing 9 percent of all adults. Seventeen percent said they would get the vaccine in that situation, amounting to 2 percent of all adults.

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Florida’s DeSantis sues Biden over federal contractor vaccine mandate

© getty: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday sued the Biden administration over its COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal contractors, the latest in a series of GOP attacks on President Biden‘s pandemic response efforts.

The complaint, filed in federal district court in Tampa, calls the policy a “radical intrusion on the personal autonomy of American workers,” and seeks a preliminary nationwide injunction to block it from taking effect.

It names as defendants President Biden and a handful of federal agencies, including NASA, the General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget.

“It’s important for us to take a stand,” DeSantis said at a press conference. “Tossing people aside is just not something we can tolerate here in the state of Florida, so we are going to do everything we can.”

Deadline, but not a cliff: The policy is set to take effect Dec. 8. On Wednesday, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said the purpose of the mandates isn’t to punish people, and noted the deadlines for federal employees and contractors “are not cliffs.” He also indicated there will be levels of flexibility, and nobody will lose their jobs immediately: federal employers and contractors will be expected to educate, counsel and accommodate their unvaccinated workers to persuade them to receive the shot before terminating them.

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WORLD STATS

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NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (October 28, 2021) — The Department of Gender Affairs in the Nevis Island Administration (NIA) announced on October 28, its calendar of activities planned for November dubbed Men’s Month, in observance of International Men’s Day on November 19. This year’s theme is “Better relations between men and women.”

Mr. Mario Phillip, Gender Affairs Officer at the department, while inviting the public to participate in the activities said they are pleased to provide the public with opportunities to show support for the men on Nevis.

“When people hear of gender, they normally think primarily of women, but we at the department we focus on both genders – male and female, and so we are happy to bring to you the number of events that we would be having in November to recognise the men of Nevis…

“We invite you to participate in all of these activities where you can and show your support. Remember on November 19^th wear something blue and rally behind the men of Nevis,” he said.

The first activity will be a church service on Sunday, November 14, at the Brown Hill Wesleyan Holiness Church, at 10 a.m. an event which Mr. Phillip deems important to allow men to emphasise the spiritual aspect of their lives.

On Tuesday, November 16, a Mentorship Programme for boys will be launched at 9 a.m. at the department’s conference room at the GMBC building on Government Road. There will an introductory programme for prospective mentors where they will learn what is required of them and how they would be impacting the lives of boys.  

The next activity is slated for International Men’s Day on Friday, November 19.  On that day the public is invited to wear blue.

“It’s a blue affair, and so show your support for the men of Nevis by wearing blue… Each of us we are here on this earth because of a man, our father, but we would have encountered other impactful men along our life’s journey.

“Show your support for them and recognise them by wearing blue and we are inviting businesses as well. Decorate your space with blue balloons, blue curtains, what you can to show men that you are rallying behind them,” Mr. Phillip said.

Later that day, the department will award deserving men at an awards ceremony at the Nevis Performing Arts Centre at 7:30 p.m.

“This award is to highlight and recognise the men in our communities who would have done outstanding work in bettering the relations between men and women. So they would have supported men and women, boys and girls to ensure that our society is strong and stable and prosperous…

“We are looking at men who would be instrumental in shaping not only boys but also girls; not only women but also men to ensure that we have individuals, strong families, and those men will receive their special recognition at the awards ceremony,” Mr. Phillip explained.

There will be a Health and Wellness Walk and a 10k Bike Race on Saturday, November 20.  Those activities are designed to pay special attention to the physical aspect of men with the support of women. The walk will begin from Charlestown to the by-pass road and back into town. The route for the bike race is from Charlestown to Cotton Ground and back. Both activities will begin at 6 a.m.  Prizes will only be awarded to the male participants.

Tuesday, November 23 will be the culmination of the training for the Boys’ Mentorship Programme which will be held at the department’s conference room at 9 a.m. It will be followed by the Men Can Cook Grill Master Competition on November 27.

Men’s Month 2021 celebrations will culminate with a bike relay hosted by SKN Moves Nevis Chapter. It will commence at 6 a.m. in Charlestown proceed onto the by-pass road and back into town.

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Oliver Milman

Guardian

Every corner of society is failing to take the “transformational change” needed to avert the most disastrous consequences of the climate crisis, with trends either too slow or in some cases even regressing, according to a major new global analysis.

Across 40 different areas spanning the power sector, heavy industry, agriculture, transportation, finance and technology, not one is changing quickly enough to avoid 1.5C in global heating beyond pre-industrial times, a critical target of the Paris climate agreement, according to the new Systems Change Lab report.

The dangerously sluggish pace of decarbonization, made plain just days before the start of crucial UN climate talks in Scotland, further highlights how the world is badly off track in its attempts to curb climate breakdown.

Atmospheric levels of planet-heating gases hit a new record high last year, and the UN has warned the amount of fossil fuel extraction planned by countries “vastly exceeds” the limit needed to keep below the 1.5C threshold.

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“We need to pull out the stops in every sector, to transform our power generation, the diets we have, how we manage land and more, all simultaneously,” said Kelly Levin, chief of science at the Bezos Earth Fund, one of the report’s co-authors. “We need transformational change and it’s very clear the trends aren’t moving fast enough.”

From renewable electricity generation to meat consumption to public financing for fossil fuels, the report found that no indicator was showing the required progress to cut emissions in half this decade before eliminating greenhouse gases completely by 2050, which would give the world a chance to keep below 1.5C.

Coal needs to be phased out five times faster than it is now, according to the analysis, while the pace of reforestation needs to be three times faster. Coastal wetlands need to be restored nearly three times faster, climate finance needs to grow 13 times faster and the energy intensity of buildings needs to drop at a rate almost three times faster than now.

In wealthy countries across Europe and North America, the consumption of beef needs to reduce 1.5 times faster than it is now. In these countries with high meat consumption and plentiful alternatives, cutting back to the equivalent of one and a half burgers per person a week would significantly reduce demand for land and greenhouse gas emissions.

There are some glimmers of promise: the global share of electricity generated from solar and wind has grown at 15% annually over the past five years and renewables have become the most cost-effective replacement for coal in most places. Electric vehicle adoption is on the rise, reaching more than 4% of worldwide car sales last year.

The report also found there was a good chance, given proper support, of “exponential” progress in technology such as the direct removal of carbon dioxide from the air, which scientists have said will probably have to be deployed on a grand scale to reduce worsening climate disasters. But overall the picture is of a world moving too slowly to confront the climate crisis.

“While things are heading in the right direction in some areas, we are moving too slowly to avoid 1.5C,” said Sophie Boehm, a climate researcher at World Resources Institute and report co-author. “If that continues, we will fall woefully short of the goals to avoid disastrous climate change. It’s very worrying we are not on track for any of these target areas.”

While progress is lagging in most places, three areas in particular – cement production, steel making and efforts to place a fee on carbon emissions – are stagnating, the report found. A further three – emissions from agriculture, the share of trips made by cars and the deforestation rate – are moving in the wrong direction.

“We need complete u-turns from these areas,” said Levin. “With climate change you can’t just head in the right direction, you need to do it at pace. Without that, we will reach disastrous tipping points.”

There is little optimism that countries will make the required commitments to salvage this situation at the Glasgow talks, known as Cop26, with Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, admitting it is “touch and go” whether the required action will be taken. John Kerry, who is Joe Biden’s climate envoy, has said there will likely be “gaps” in emissions-cutting plans put forward by governments.

Should the world breach 1.5C in global heating, the planet will be hit by an increasing frequency of deadly heatwaves, ruinous storms, disastrous flooding and crop failures, wiping trillions of dollars from economic activity and forcing the displacement of millions of people. António Guterres, secretary general of the UN, has warned the world is risking a “hellish future” through its lack of urgency to confront the crisis.

“We have the technology for the majority of these areas to decarbonize,” said Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, an organization that provided input to the new report. “What we need is political will, and for governments to catch up with the opportunity this transition will bring for their economies.”

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