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An emperor has lost his invincibility  

As college presidents go, Eugene Trani made an outstanding mayor.

Trani, who announced Thursday that he's stepping down as president of Virginia Commonwealth University in July, was the rarest of local commodities -- a true visionary.

Not sharing that vision could be hazardous to your professional health if you were his subordinate. And if you lived in an adjacent neighborhood, Tranivision could be seen as a steamroller intent on pancaking preservation in the name of progress.

Trani, 68, is an empire builder. . . .

Any mayor with Trani's body of work -- from the Monroe Park campus to the medical center to the biotechnology research park to VCU's global outreach -- would probably puff up with pride and say the only way to go from here is governor. . . .

Trani has long had detractors among the VCU academic family. But the discontent spilled outside the university community and onto the pages of The New York Times, which wrote unflatteringly about VCU's research relationship with tobacco king Philip Morris USA.

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A rough start to year at VCU  

Eugene P. Trani's announcement last week that he will step down as president next summer for health reasons adds another dimension to decisions facing VCU's board of visitors.

The board will meet Wednesday and Thursday as it works to resolve the fallout from what Trani has termed "a summer of challenges."

The controversies erupted almost simultaneously. Research grants from Philip Morris USA brought negative national attention to the university. . . .

The faculty senate will meet Sept. 2 . . .

The next day, a task force appointed by Trani will hold a second town hall-style meeting to hear student and faculty views on whether the university has compromised its integrity as a public health institution by accepting research money from companies such as tobacco giant Philip Morris.

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Tobacco David wins a ruling against a Goliath  

A Petersburg-based company has won an appeal in a lengthy legal battle with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. over patents covering a process to reduce some cancer-causing toxins in tobacco.

The ruling yesterday by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit in Washington means the lawsuit brought by Star Scientific Inc. against the nation's second-largest cigarette maker is likely to go to trial, a Reynolds spokesman said.

Star, which sells smokeless tobacco products, sought millions of dollars in damages in the lawsuit, filed in 2001. It claimed that Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds had infringed Star's patents for a method designed to reduce carcinogens called tobacco-specific nitrosamines, which form during the curing of tobacco leaves.

The appeals court yesterday overturned a lower-court ruling in 2007 that declared the patents invalid. The appeals court sent the case back to U.S. District Court in Maryland.

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Production of leaf has declined  

Tobacco plants have given way to grapevines on the rolling hills of the Williams farm in Pittsylvania County.

The green swath of vines growing on a 9-acre plot represent an investment in a future that increasingly looks tobacco-free for Joe Williams.

"We have three children and they have families of their own, and everybody is investing," in the vineyard, said Williams, who grew tobacco for more than 30 years but began a transition to grapes three years ago. "This is something that we came up with that everyone could get something out of and still be on the farm." . . .

Jim Jennings, a tobacco grower in Mecklenburg County, dropped out of tobacco for one year in 2005, but is now growing the crop again.

"Some people have gotten out and the ones who have stayed have gotten a little bigger," said Jennings, who said he has avoided putting settlement payments back into his tobacco operation. "I have used it to educate children, though," he said.

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Belgian smokers go for cheaper cigarettes  

More smokers in Belgium are buying cheap cigarettes from the Value for Money segment.

According to the dailies Gazet Van Antwerpen and Belang Van Limburg on Tuesday, more smokers have discovered a recipe to escape the rising cost of cigarettes by going for cheaper brands.

The cheaper cigarettes fall under the Value for Money segment and include brands such as Pall Mall Blue and Austin Blue which sell 19 cigarettes for EUR 3.50.

In 2006, this segment made up 10 percent of the market, but now boosts a market share of 17 percent, says Cimabel, the federation of the six largest tobacco manufacturers. . . .

The sale of cigarettes has dropped in Belgium since 2007.

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Govt 'caving into pressure' over tobacco laws  

Anti-smoking groups have criticised the ACT Government for delaying its tough tobacco laws saying it has bowed to pressure from retailers.

The Tobacco Control Amendment Bill is scheduled to be debated in the Legislative Assembly today.

The bill originally proposed a ban on counter displays which would come into affect six months after the laws passed.

But the Government now plans to delay its introduction, giving general retailers until the end of next year to comply and specialist tobacco retailers until the end of 2010.

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• Minister Doubts Effectiveness Of MUI Ban On Smoking  

Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni said he doubted the effectiveness of a ban on smoking the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) was planning to issue.

"It is better to prioritise efforts to promote public awareness about the dangers of nicotine because many MUI fatwas (edicts) have been issued before but remained unimplemented," Indonesia's ANTARA news agency quoted the minister as saying here on Monday. . . .

A fatwa against smoking was most likely to be ignored by people in the absence of efforts to make them aware of the harmful effects of the habit, the minister added.

MUI intended to issue the ban on smoking because its demerits outweighed its merits for one's health and finances.

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• Decline in smoking rates flatlines; cancer group blames contraband cigarettes  

Efforts to cut smoking rates among Canadians have stalled and the Canadian Cancer Society is blaming huge sales of cheap contraband cigarettes in this country.

Federal and provincial governments need to take action, including insisting that American authorities shut down illegal cigarette production operations on the U.S. side of the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall, Ont., the organization said Monday.

Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the cancer society, said the RCMP has identified the American side of Akwesasne as the most important source of illegal cigarettes sold in Canada.

"So it's essential that (Minister of Public Safety) Stockwell Day persuade his U.S. counterpart, the secretary of homeland security, to shut down the illegal operations on the U.S. side of Akwesasne," Cunningham said in an interview.

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LETTER: Smoking laws, headlights bothering me  

This smoking ban has bothered me. I found an article in City Pages where Mr. Eisenman does an excellent job of expressing my feelings. What they are doing to the Red Apple is shameful. Wausau should be ashamed of itself. Amen.

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Study links peers, parents to teen smoking 

Parents who do not want their children to smoke should get to know their kids' friends and avoid smoking themselves.

It's not a groundbreaking concept, but the message was reinforced by the findings in a new report by researchers at the University of Wisconsin's cancer center.

The study comes as about one in five youths still report that they smoke, a rate that has held steady even while smoking has declined among adults. Understanding the reasons why could help reduce youth smoking, said Aaron Doeppers, director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids' Midwest region.

Seventy-three percent of students who reported smoking had four or more friends who smoke, according to the study, and just 3 percent reported having no friends who smoke. . . .

"Kids imitate (their parents') behavior, and they think it's OK," Gordon said. The best message parents who smoke can send their children is to quit themselves.

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• Study: Ban reduces hospitalizations 

A new study of Kentucky health care usage in four hospitals published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology concluded that smoke-fee laws reduced asthma emergency room visits by more than a fifth, according to a news release from Nicole Resch, tobacco control coordinator of Manitowoc County.

University of Kentucky researchers assessed emergency room visits for asthma in the Lexington area before and after the enactment of a countywide smoke-free law. They found that after 32 months in effect, the smoke-free law dropped asthma emergency room visits by 22 percent.

"This research once again shows that secondhand smoke is a health hazard," Resch said in the news release. "It is dangerous to people's health. And it is expensive to treat. This study reaffirms the importance of smoke-free laws."

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• 80 Percent Of Adolescents Who Play Sports Don't Smoke, Spanish Study Finds 

Sports and tobacco consumption are directly related, according to a new study by researchers in Spain.

The work was carried out by researchers of the University of Granada, the Spanish National Research Council- CSIC, the Universities of Murcia, Zaragoza and Cantabria, and the Nuestra Señora de la Consolación School of Granada. Results of the study show that those Spanish adolescents who play a sport do not smoke usually (8 of every 10), and more than 40% of the adolescents aged between 13 and 18 do not practice any physical activity.

In the article "Increase of tobacco consumption and reduction of the physical activity practice level in Spanish adolescents: AVENA Study", published in the journal Nutrición Hospitalaria, the researchers analysed the relationship between tobacco and sports in a sample of about 3,000 students

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• Smoking and Other Cancer Risks May Be Less Known in Low-Income Countries, Global Survey Shows 

Knowledge about cancer facts, including cancer risks from smoking, are lagging in low-income countries, a new survey shows. The survey comes from the International Union Against Cancer (UICC), a global nonprofit group based in Geneva, Switzerland.

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Major Government Report Concludes That Tobacco Marketing and Smoking in Movies Promote Youth Smoking 

Leaders from the federal government and the nation’s public health community today announced the release of an authoritative National Cancer Institute report that reaches the government’s strongest conclusion to date that tobacco marketing and depictions of smoking in movies promote youth smoking. The 684-page report, The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use, presents definitive conclusions that a) tobacco advertising and promotion are causally related to increased tobacco use, and b) exposure to depictions of smoking in movies is causally related to youth smoking initiation.

The report also concludes that mass media campaigns can reduce smoking, especially when combined with other tobacco control strategies. However, youth smoking prevention campaigns sponsored by the tobacco industry have been generally ineffective and may actually have increased youth smoking.

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• Chemicals and tobacco are increasing cancers in Yemen  

In Yemen, chemicals or pesticides used in farming and tobaccos are the main factors in increasing cancer cases, doctors say.

They warn that using tobacco, whether it is smoked or smokeless tobacco such as shamma, which is placed under the tongue or between the lips and gums, coupled with the unregulated use of chemicals in irrigation are factors in the spread of various cancers and other diseases among Yemenis.

Officials and specialists maintain that such chemicals enter the country both legally and illegally, but that the Yemeni government has failed to control them to the degree that they have become used on all farms.

Dr. Mohammed Kedesi, radiation oncologist at the National Oncology Center in Sana’a, said, “We’ve recently noticed a horrible phenomenon of increased instances of cancer among Yemenis, although the disease isn’t new in this country. . . .

“Most Yemenis afflicted with cancer are from Hodeidah governorate because of the bad habit of shamma usage.” . . .

Kedesi confirmed that the oncology center receives 25 new cancer cases every day. Most cancers among men, such as mouth, neck and tongue cancers, could result from their addiction to tobacco and chewing or eating plants sprayed with chemicals.

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