The Potential Impact of a “No-Buy” List on Youth Exposure to Alcohol Advertising on Cable Television.

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This article by CS Ross , RD Brewer and DH Jernigan appears in the January 2016 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to outline a method to improve alcohol industry compliance with its self-regulatory advertising placement guidelines on television with the goal of reducing youth exposure to noncompliant advertisements.

METHOD: Data were sourced from Nielsen (The Nielsen Company, New York, NY) for all alcohol advertisements on television in the United States for 2005-2012. A “no-buy” list, that is a list of cable television programs and networks to be avoided when purchasing alcohol advertising, was devised using three criteria: avoid placements on programs that were noncompliant in the past (serially noncompliant), avoid placements on networks at times of day when youth make up a high proportion of the audience (high-risk network dayparts), and use a “guardbanded” (or more restrictive) composition guideline when placing ads on low-rated programs (low rated).

RESULTS: Youth were exposed to 15.1 billion noncompliant advertising impressions from 2005 to 2012, mostly on cable television. Together, the three no-buy list criteria accounted for 99% of 12.9 billion noncompliant advertising exposures on cable television for youth ages 2-20 years. When we evaluated the no-buy list criteria sequentially and mutually exclusively, serially noncompliant ads accounted for 67% of noncompliant exposure, high-risk network-daypart ads accounted for 26%, and low-rated ads accounted for 7%.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that the prospective use of the no-buy list criteria when purchasing alcohol advertising could eliminate most noncompliant advertising exposures and could be incorporated into standard post-audit procedures that are widely used by the alcohol industry in assessing exposure to television advertising.

After being investigated over tainted cookies, food industry giant settles for lack of excess lead warning

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The Orange County Register reports that Mondelez International, formerly known as Kraft Foods, has settled a state investigation into claims the food industry giant sold ginger snap cookies in California that contained excess lead without a warning. “The levels of lead found in Nabisco’s Ginger Snap cookies posed a serious public health threat, potentially impacting the brain development of our children,” said California Attorney General Kamala Harris in a statement. “Parents need accurate information to make educated food choices for their children.”

New Report on Dangerous Regulatory Duet

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“Regulatory cooperation” is set to be at the heart of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which is currently under negotiation between the European Union and the US. A new report from the Corporate Europe Observatory warns that the treaty will allow bureaucrats and big business to attack the public interest. The report looks at cases of regulatory cooperation between the US and the EU that have had a negative impact on regulations in the public interest. It illustrates that TTIP was born out of a dialogue between big business and trade officials, and as a result clearly reflects the enthusiasm of transnational corporations for regulatory issues.

FTC Report on Drug Patent Settlements Shows Potential Pay-for-Delay Deals Decreased Substantially

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In the year after the Supreme Court’s landmark antitrust decision in FTC v. Actavis, pharmaceutical companies entered into substantially fewer potential pay-for-delay patent dispute settlements, according to a new FTC staff report. In pay for delay, companies that hold patents for drugs pay other companies not to release similar drugs. The report summarizes data on patent settlements – which can arise between brand and generic drug companies – filed with the FTC and the Department of Justice during FY 2014 under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Generic drugs often cost less than brand drugs, helping to make medicines affordable for millions of American consumers and to keep health care costs down.

‘It’s the Wild West out there.’ E-cigarette advertising reaches 70 percent of middle and high schoolers, CDC says.

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E-cigarette marketing has become so ubiquitous, reports the Washington Post, that it now reaches more than two-thirds of U.S. middle and high school students, according to a new US Centers for Disease Control report — a development that some public health officials argue is prompting more teens to use the devices and threatening decades of progress in combating youth tobacco use.

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Credit: US CDC

More than 18 million (7 in 10) US middle and high school youth were exposed to e-cigarette ads in 2014.

More than 1 in 2 middle and high school youth were exposed to e-cigarette ads in retail stores.

Nearly 2 in 5 middle and high school youth saw e-cigarette ads online.

Cut drinking to reduce risk of cancer, says new guidance from United Kingdom

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BMJ reports that new guidelines from all four UK chief medical officers warn that drinking any level of alcohol raises the risk of a range of cancers. An expert advisory group examined the evidence from 44 systematic reviews and meta-analyses published since a 1995 report and concluded that there was strong evidence that the risk of a range of cancers, particularly breast cancer, increased directly in line with consumption of any amount of alcohol. Another recent report from the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity said that between 4% and 6% of all new cancers in the UK in 2013 were caused by alcohol consumption.

Lawsuit Filed Against Oregon Dealer That Transferred Gun Used in Murder Through Straw Purchase

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The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence announced that the family of Kirsten Englund is filing a lawsuit against World Pawn Exchange for transferring multiple firearms to a straw purchaser, which were then used by her mentally ill son, to murder Kirsten Englund and carjack and kidnap another victim during a crime spree stretching from Oregon to California.  The suit also seeks to hold Diane Boyce and J&G Sales, the company which originally sold the guns online, accountable.  The suit was filed in the Multnomah County Circuit Court by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, PLLC, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s Legal Action Project, and the D’Amore Law Group, P.C.

Purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages in Mexico decline after tax

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A new study in BMJ assessing the impact of Mexico’s tax on sugar-sweetened beverages found that purchases of taxed beverages decreased by an average of 6% and decreased at an increasing rate up to a 12% decline by December 2014. All three socioeconomic groups reduced purchases of taxed beverages, but reductions were higher among the households of low socioeconomic status, averaging a 9% decline during 2014, and up to a 17% decrease by December 2014 compared with pretax trends. Purchases of untaxed beverages were 4% higher than before 2014 mainly driven by an increase in purchases of bottled plain water.

Slide1[photo: A poster from the campaign for Mexico’s sugar tax. Message says: “With the soda tax, water fountains in schools and public places.”]