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European Ministers Agree to Stricter Tobacco Laws

June 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

LONDON — Cigarette packs in Europe will have to carry bigger health warnings, and products with menthol or other flavorings face a total ban, under an agreement European Union ministers struck Friday after spirited negotiations.

A small group led by Poland won a reprieve for slim cigarettes, which are popular among female voters in several formerly Communist nations and had also been threatened with a ban.

The agreement Friday is not the final decision, as the new smoking rules would require approval by the European Parliament before coming into force. But the compromise is a milestone because it secured the support of national governments, including some that had fought hard to soften measures opposed by the tobacco industry and some smoker advocacy groups.

The measures reflect a concerted effort by European policy makers to reduce the attractiveness of tobacco to younger smokers in hopes of preventing them from taking up a habit notoriously hard to kick. Cigarettes with menthol and other flavorings are deemed easier for novices to smoke.

Under the deal reached Friday, a health warning combining pictures and text must cover 65 percent of the front and back of all cigarette packs. That represents a reduction from the proposal going into the meeting of a 75 percent minimum, but it is an increase from the current 40 percent figure.

James Reilly, the health minister of Ireland, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, told a news conference in Luxembourg that about 700,000 Europeans die every year of tobacco-related causes and that smoking is “one of the greatest preventable and avoidable threats to health.” Packaging that appeals to younger smokers, he said, was tantamount to “entrapment of our young people.”

The ministers also agreed on tighter regulation of electronic cigarettes, which would require authorization if they exceed a nicotine threshold.

Currently, only some of the European Union nations apply such restrictions on electronic cigarettes, which produce vapors from a nicotine liquid, rather than burning tobacco. But Tonio Borg, the European commissioner in charge of health and consumer policy, said that e-cigarettes “can give a false sense of security.”

The debate over flavored cigarettes mirrors a longstanding debate in the United States. In 2009, Congress passed a law prohibiting flavorings but exempted menthol after heavy lobbying by the tobacco industry. Although Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to ban menthol if this was deemed appropriate on health grounds, the F.D.A. has studied the matter but has taken no action.

In Europe, a ban on menthol cigarettes would not go into effect for some time. National governments would have up to three years to implement the rules after the new tobacco law came into force. And the rollout of the new law itself, if finally approved later this year, could take about 18 months, Mr. Borg said.

Slim cigarettes, which were exempted from the compromise Friday, had been a target because of the fear that their supposed allure attracts young women to smoking.

Though slim cigarettes will still be permitted, new packaging and health warning requirements will prevent their sale in the smallest types of packs in which they are currently sold. “Tobacco should look like tobacco and not like a perfume or a candy,” Mr. Borg said. “And it should taste like tobacco.”

In light of the compromises, antismoking campaigners expressed disappointment that large pictorial warnings were not made mandatory on all cigarette packs. The new rules would be less strict than those in Australia, which has legislated against logos and colorful designs, and in New Zealand, which has proposed doing the same.

Florence Berteletti Kemp, director of the Smoke Free Partnership, a European organization that promotes tobacco control and research, described the outcome Friday as “disappointing.”

“Despite the formidable efforts of the Irish presidency, the agreement adopted goes against key measures such as large pictorial warnings, which cost nothing to governments but would better protect millions of European children,” she said in a statement. “It is outrageous to see so many concessions made to an industry that buys its wealth and influence by marketing a deadly product.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/22/business/global/eu-ministers-agree-to-stricter-tobacco-laws.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Britain May Delay Tighter Regulations on Banks

September 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment

On Monday, a government-appointed banking commission is expected to present its final recommendations on how to protect taxpayers from bearing the costs of any future bank collapses. The plan aims to separate a bank’s deposit-taking business from the riskier trading and investment banking operations, which would be allowed to fail should they run into trouble.

But at a time of heightened economic uncertainty, the government of Prime Minister David Cameron has grown nervous about the proposed changes, said two government officials who declined to be identified because no final decision has been made.

Mr. Cameron is concerned that the changes will drive up banks’ financing costs and in turn limit their ability to lend to British businesses, which would threaten an already weak economy, the officials said.

So even if the Independent Commission on Banking proposes far-reaching changes, London is likely to delay their implementation until after the next election, planned for 2015, the officials said.

“This is a political and not a financial thing now,” said Simon Gleeson, a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance. “What everybody hoped was that by the time we got to reforming banking regulation we’d have a more stable economy. But we don’t and that’s the biggest challenge.”

The British economy grew just 0.2 percent in the second quarter, and the Bank of England has cut its growth forecast for this year to 1.5 percent from 1.9 percent.

The British proposal would make it considerably more expensive to raise capital for investment banking and would be much more painful for Britain’s banks than the so-called Volcker Rule in the United States.

Under the United States approach, originally advocated in a stronger form by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who served as an adviser to President Obama, banks’ freedom to trade with their own capital and manage hedge funds would be limited. But they would still be able to borrow money economically because their balance sheets would remain unified.

British banking executives, nervous that the new rules would increase their financing costs and threaten their credit ratings, have stepped up lobbying efforts in recent weeks.

Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland would be the most affected by the new rules because they have large investment banking businesses and could see profit drop by a third, according to a research note by JPMorgan Chase.

The chief executive of Barclays, Robert E. Diamond Jr., and his counterpart at R.B.S., Stephen Hester, have held lengthy discussions with the government, arguing in favor of the universal banking model, that is, leaving consumer and investment banking linked. They claimed this had helped their banks to withstand risks, according to a Treasury official who declined to be identified because the talks were private.

In a preliminary report in April, the Independent Commission on Banking suggested limiting the use of consumer deposits to finance the investment banking operation by setting up a so-called ring fence around the consumer operations. On Monday, the commission is expected to give more detail on exactly which businesses should be “ring-fenced” and how strict the separation should be. As an example, banks could be restricted to using deposits only for personal loans and the purchase of government bonds.

Angela Knight, the head of the British Bankers Association, an industry group, said the commission’s proposals would weaken rather than strengthen the financial sector. “Ring-fencing becomes unattractive to investors of all types as it reduces the benefits of diversification, gives borrowers a worse deal, and is inefficient from a capital, funding and operational perspective,” she said.

Among the biggest fears for banking executives is that the new rules would increase the financing costs of investment banking by implying the business would be allowed to fail. Interbank lenders, the executives argue, would demand higher rates in return for the higher risk. The banks’ total financing costs could rise by about £2 billion a year, according to a report by Citigroup analysts.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=831467389fc9350a49bcde1b58e03c95

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Medicare Will Continue to Cover 2 Expensive Cancer Drugs

July 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the agency would continue to pay for Avastin for breast cancer, even if the Food and Drug Administration revoked the drug’s approval as a treatment for that disease.

“The label change will not affect our coverage,” the spokesman, Don McLeod, said.

An advisory committee to the F.D.A. voted unanimously Wednesday in favor of rescinding the breast cancer approval, saying the latest evidence suggested the drug was not effective. The final decision will be made by the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, after a public comment period ends on July 28.

Avastin would retain approval for other cancers so doctors could still use it off label for breast cancer. But some women fear that insurers will no longer pay for the drug, putting the medicine, which costs about $88,000 a year, out of reach for most women.

Mr. McLeod’s statement could allay those concerns, at least for women covered by Medicare. He said that Medicare commonly paid for off-label use of cancer drugs.

Still, Mr. McLeod said that while there were no plans for one right now, he could not totally rule out that Medicare might one day undertake a national coverage determination to decide whether to pay for Avastin. That process would take at least a year and involve public input.

Such a national coverage determination was undertaken for Provenge, which costs $93,000 for a complete course of treatment.

The final decision, issued Thursday, said the evidence was adequate to conclude that Provenge “improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries” and was therefore “reasonable and necessary” for their treatment.

The result confirmed a preliminary decision announced three months ago.

The decision applies to men who meet the criteria in the drug’s label, meaning the cancer has spread beyond the prostate gland, it is no longer controlled by hormone therapy and the men have few or no symptoms.

The national coverage determination drew outcries from some men with prostate cancer, investors in Dendreon and critics of health care reform, who said the government was singling out the drug because of its cost and was on its way to rationing health care. Similar accusations about rationing greeted the F.D.A.’s proposal to remove the breast cancer approval for Avastin.

Both Medicare and the F.D.A. said the costs of the drugs were not a factor in their deliberations.

Private insurance companies must also decide whether to continue paying for Avastin as a breast cancer treatment.

WellPoint said it would review the medical necessity after the F.D.A. makes its final determination.

Cigna and the Health Care Service Corporation, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, both said they would evaluate their coverage positions after the F.D.A. made a final decision.

UnitedHealthcare said its chemotherapy coverage decisions were based on a reference published by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. That reference lists Avastin as a valid treatment for breast cancer.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=09309b36ebe344112630a1c2139a3445

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India Rejects U.S. Bids for Big Order of Fighter Jets

April 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The decision was a blow for President Obama, who had pushed hard for this and other defense deals during his visit to India in November as part of his agenda to deepen and broaden the United States’ relationship with India. The American ambassador to India, Timothy J. Roemer, who separately announced on Thursday that he would resign from his post for personal reasons, said the United States was “deeply disappointed by this news.”

While political and economic relations between India and the United States have been warming for years, American arms makers have struggled to win big contracts here. After decades of frosty relations during the cold war, which pushed India to rely extensively on the Soviet Union for military hardware, many in the Indian defense establishment are still wary of American intentions and United States military aid to Pakistan, India’s main adversary.

The American bid to build the fighters came from Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Boeing had offered its F/A -18 jets and Lockheed Martin pitched its F-16 planes. But India instead narrowed the list to the Rafale fighter from Dassault and the Eurofighter Typhoon jet made by a consortium of European companies. Russian and Swedish bids were also turned down.

The 126 planes are meant to replace aging Russian jets. A spokesman for the Indian Defense Ministry said the country hoped to make a final decision by the end of March 2012.

Both American companies are also looking to sell other military hardware to India, which unlike much of the Western world has been sharply increasing its defense spending. Some analysts say India could spend $50 billion to $80 billion on equipment in the next five years.

One Indian international affairs analyst, C. Raja Mohan, played down the significance of the American companies’ loss of this deal. He said that the Indian government was buying more from United States contractors than ever before.

“One deal doesn’t make everything,” said Mr. Mohan, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “There has been a lot of hype about this deal. We are doing things with the U.S. that we never did before.”

But another analyst, Nitin Pai, argued that India’s decision would hurt relations with the United States, at a time when the country needed stronger ties with America to advance its interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the United Nations Security Council, on which India is seeking a permanent seat.

“This move will most certainly reduce India’s geopolitical leverage with the U.S. military-industrial complex, at a time when India needs it most,” Mr. Pai wrote on his blog, The Acorn. He added, “Is the United States more likely to be sympathetic to India’s interests after an $11 billion contract — which means much needed jobs for the U.S. economy — is awarded to someone else?”

Dinesh Keskar, president of Boeing’s Indian operation, said that while the company was “obviously disappointed” about not making the cut for the fighter jets, it was “quite excited about the opportunities in India.” He added that the company was seeking a meeting with Indian officials to find out why its planes were not selected.

Boeing said the company and the Indian Air Force were in the final stages of negotiating a contract for C-17 cargo planes that was announced by Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November. And it is hoping to win orders for attack and heavy-lift helicopters.

“We are quite engaged with and will continue our partnership with India,” Mr. Keskar said in a telephone interview.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/business/global/29india.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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