FDA expands its authority over tobacco products

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finalized a rule extending its authority to all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, cigars, hookah tobacco and pipe tobacco, among others.

This historic rule helps implement the bipartisan Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 and allows the FDA to improve public health and protect future generations from the dangers of tobacco use through a variety of steps, including restricting the sale of these tobacco products to minors nationwide.

"We have more to do to help protect Americans from the dangers of tobacco and nicotine, especially our youth. As cigarette smoking among those under 18 has fallen, the use of other nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, has taken a drastic leap. All of this is creating a new generation of Americans who are at risk of addiction," said HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell. "Today's announcement is an important step in the fight for a tobacco-free generation – it will help us catch up with changes in the marketplace, put into place rules that protect our kids and give adults information they need to make informed decisions."

Tobacco use is a significant public health threat. In fact, smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States and responsible for 480,000 deaths a year.

While there has been a significant decline in the use of traditional cigarettes among youth over the past decade, their use of other tobacco products continues to climb. A recent survey supported by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows current e-cigarette use among high school students has skyrocketed from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 16 percent in 2015 (an over 900 percent increase) and hookah use has risen significantly. In 2015, 3 million middle and high school students were current e-cigarette users, and data showed high school boys smoked cigars at about the same rate as cigarettes.

Additionally, a joint study by the FDA and the National Institutes of Health shows that in 2013-2014, nearly 80 percent of current youth tobacco users reported using a flavored tobacco product in the past 30 days, with the availability of appealing flavors consistently cited as a reason for use.

Before today, there was no federal law prohibiting retailers from selling e-cigarettes, hookah tobacco or cigars to people under age 18. Today's rule changes that with provisions aimed at restricting youth access, which go into effect in 90 days, including:

• Not allowing products to be sold to persons under the age of 18 years (both in person and online);
• Requiring age verification by photo ID;
• Not allowing the selling of covered tobacco products in vending machines (unless in an adult-only facility); and
• Not allowing the distribution of free samples.

The actions being taken today will help the FDA prevent misleading claims by tobacco product manufacturers, evaluate the ingredients of tobacco products and how they are made, as well as communicate their potential risks.

Today's rule also requires manufacturers of all newly regulated products to show that the products meet the applicable public health standard set forth in the law and receive marketing authorization from the FDA, unless the product was on the market as of Feb. 15, 2007. The tobacco product review process gives the agency the ability to evaluate important factors such as ingredients, product design and health risks, as well as their appeal to youth and non-users.

Under staggered timelines, the FDA expects that manufacturers will continue selling their products for up to two years while they submit – and an additional year while the FDA reviews – a new tobacco product application. The FDA will issue an order granting marketing authorization where appropriate; otherwise, the product will face FDA enforcement.

For decades, the federal government and the public health community have fought to protect people from the dangers of tobacco use. Since the first Surgeon General's report on Smoking and Health in 1964, which warned Americans about the risks associated with smoking, significant progress has been made to reduce smoking rates among Americans. In fact, tobacco prevention and control efforts have saved at least 8 million lives in the last 50 years, according to the 2014 Surgeon General's Report on the Health Consequences of Smoking.

In 2009, Congress took a historic step in the fight for public health by passing the bipartisan Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA), giving the FDA authority to regulate the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of tobacco products to protect the public health.

Today's action marks a new chapter in the FDA's efforts to end preventable tobacco-related disease and death and is a milestone in consumer protection. 

"As a physician, I've seen first-hand the devastating health effects of tobacco use," said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D. "At the FDA, we must do our job under the Tobacco Control Act to reduce the harms caused by tobacco. That includes ensuring consumers have the information they need to make informed decisions about tobacco use and making sure that new tobacco products for purchase come under comprehensive FDA review."

Today's actions will subject all manufacturers, importers and/or retailers of newly-regulated tobacco products to any applicable provisions, bringing them in line with other tobacco products the FDA has regulated under the TCA since 2009.   

These requirements include:

• Registering manufacturing establishments and providing product listings to the FDA;
• Reporting ingredients, and harmful and potentially harmful constituents;
• Requiring premarket review and authorization of new tobacco products by the FDA;
• Placing health warnings on product packages and advertisements; and
• Not selling modified risk tobacco products (including those described as "light," "low," or "mild") unless authorized by the FDA.

"This final rule is a foundational step that enables the FDA to regulate products young people were using at alarming rates, like e-cigarettes, cigars and hookah tobacco, that had gone largely unregulated," said Mitch Zeller, J.D., director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. "The agency considered a number of factors in developing the rule and believes our approach is reasonable and balanced. Ultimately our job is to assess what's happening at the population level before figuring out how to use all of the regulatory tools Congress gave the FDA."

Study shows American women are savvy shoppers

 
American women are shopping across multiple channels, are price sensitive, and know how to take advantage of the myriad promotional offers available to them, according to shopper research from Blackhawk Engagement Solutions.

“With women usually doing the lion’s share of day-to-day shopping, female shoppers aren’t only a key demographic for retailers, they’re often the primary demographic,” said Rodney Mason, GVP of Marketing at Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, an international incentives and engagement company. “Our research shows that retailers have opportunities to engage with the sought-after female shopper through omnichannel optimization and valuable promotions that offer best-in-market prices and use prepaid cards.”

Blackhawk Engagement Solutions’ “How Women Shop: Shopping Habits of American Women” report summarizes the findings from two distinct studies: the first was a U.S. study conducted in April 2015 that surveyed more than 1,300 American women and focused on shopping behaviors; the second was a U.S. study conducted in October 2015 that surveyed more than 1,300 additional American women and focused on app and gift card preferences.

Together, these surveys identified the ways American women research purchases, the devices they use, and the influences along their paths to purchase. Key findings include:

• Women are plugged in, particularly to smartphones: Female shoppers own and use daily: smartphones (71 percent), laptops (66 percent), desktop computers (46 percent) and tablets (44 percent).
• TV and social media are most popular sources for shopping info: When it comes to learning about products, specials and shopping news, women rely most heavily on TV (45 percent) and social media (42 percent), followed by friends and family (38 percent), retail websites (37 percent), newspapers and magazines (36 percent) and Amazon (29 percent).
• Women remain price sensitive: Female shoppers’ purse strings aren’t getting any looser. Ninety-seven percent have more or the same sensitivity to price as last year. Additionally, price has the greatest influence on women’s purchase decisions above all other factors, including quality, brand, store and availability.
• Amazon and Google are tops for price comparisons on smartphones: Amazon (38 percent) and Google (31 percent) are female shoppers’ top choices for comparing prices on their smartphones. Additionally, Amazon dominates as women’s top shopping app (71 percent) followed by grocery store apps (28 percent) and Groupon (26 percent).
• When it comes to promotions, women love rebates, prefer plastic for rewards: Sixty-nine percent of women consider in-store rebates attractive offers. Women also prefer plastic prepaid cards over eCodes when it comes to receiving post-purchase rewards. However, 80 percent of women would accept a $25 promotion on a $100 purchase when only a digital reward is offered.
• Same-day delivery or pickup is attractive, especially with a rebate: Forty-five percent of women bought online and picked up in-store in the last six months; 88 percent would consider buying online and picking up in store to save $10 on a $50 purchase; and 80 percent would consider doing so to receive an item three days earlier.
• Women embrace loyalty programs: Eighty percent of women belong to store loyalty programs and 64 percent are happy with those programs. Women largely prefer to receive loyalty notifications by email (82 percent), although 37 percent of women receive loyalty offers via apps and 36 receive them via text message.
• Female shoppers find safety and value in gift and prepaid cards, prefer them for rewards:
  • Seventy-five percent of women have purchased gift cards in the last year.
  • Seventy percent would take advantage of exclusive values requiring the use of a gift card and 38 percent buy gift cards for themselves when bonus awards are offered with purchase.
  • Women prefer universal prepaid cards as post-purchase rewards over all other offerings.
  • Sixty-seven percent would consider exchanging gift cards they receive for other available brands.
  • Sixty-five percent think using gift cards for transactions helps limit identity fraud and 58 percent feel gift cards are safer for online transactions than other digital payments.
  • Fifty-four percent would buy gift cards that can be converted to e-gifts.
  • Nineteen percent buy gift cards for themselves.

Blackhawk Engagement Solutions is a division of Blackhawk Network, which built its business on pioneering new products that shoppers love and widely adopt such as gift card malls in grocery stores. This success is rooted in Blackhawk’s expertise in shopper marketing and its ability to stay ahead of consumer behavior.

'Hairspray' set to shine at Peoria Players

Jeremy Kelly has performed in the musical “Hairspray” before, portraying Link Larkin sat another theatre’s production in 2011. He remembers well how much fun the musical can be, with its upbeat music and dance and comedic dialogue.

But that was not the chief reason he decided to accept the invitation to direct “Hairspray” at Peoria Players Theatre this spring. It was the story behind the fun that drew him in, he said.

“The story of this show is loving yourself, no matter what size or color or anything else you happen to be. Each of us is a special person and this show brings out that message,” Kelly said. “On the surface people probably think just about the fun stuff, but once they really know the story they see how special ‘Hairspray’ is, and that is what I wanted to bring to the cast and help them bring that to our audience.”

That will happen starting Friday at 7:30 p.m. when “Hairspray” opens an eight-show run at Peoria Players, 4300 N. University St. Tickets are $19 for adults and $12 for students and can be purchased by visiting www.peoriaplayers.org or by calling 688-4473. Several performance are already sold out.

“Hairspray” tells the story of plump teen-ager Tracy Turnblad’s dream of one day dancing on the Corny Collins TV dance program in 1962. When she lands a role on the show, she sets out to integrate it, running up against opposition at a time when racism was a large part of American society.

The book for the show was written by Marc O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, with music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Scott Wittman. It is based on the 1988 John Waters film by the same name.

Songs in the show include “Good Morning Baltimore,” “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now,” “I Can Hear the Bells,” “Big, Blonde and Beautiful,” “You’re Timeless to Me,” “I Know Where I’ve Been,” and “You Can’t Stop the Beat.”

“Hairspray” won eight Tony Awards in 2003, including Best Musical.

Kelly said he was pumped about “Hairspray” and the cast and didn’t bother to pardon the pun.

“We have 55 people ranging in age 13 to mid-60s and they are about as diverse a cast as you could think of. They all come from different backgrounds but we come together for rehearsals and have a great time doing this show. It has been a great experience,” said Kelly, who is directing his first mainstage show for Peoria Players. He has directed “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at Eastlight Theatre and the children’s theatre production of “All Shook Up.”

He said performing, which he has done many times is very different from directing but that each has its high point. “There are certainly more and different responsibilities with directing, but it also is fun to get the show to the end product then sit back and watch it unfold before an audience. With this cast, I can’t wait,” he said.

The cast includes many local community theatre veterans, but the main character is making her Peoria stage debut.

Samantha Dean, a sophomore at Bradley University who hails from the Chicago area, is portraying Tracy Turnblad. She has only done two or three musicals before this and didn’t even start singing until late in high school, Kelly said.

“You’d never believe that to see her on stage. She seems very seasoned and professional,” he said.

Kelly stuck with the tradition of casting a male in the role of Tracy’s mother, Edna Turnblad. Trev Neff fills the role at Peoria Players, with fellow theatre veteran Nate Downs portraying Edna’s put-upon husband Wilbur. “The duo that Trev and Nate have become is fantastic. I love watching them,” Kelly said.

He praised the comedic timing and acting abilities of Michelle Rouland as Velma Von Tussle, Susan Hazzard as Penny Pingleton and Amy Wycoff as Prudy Pingleton and the powerful and emotional voice of Valerie Kelley, who portrays Motormouth Maybelle.

Also noteworthy, he added, are the performances of Adam Raso as Corny Collins, Stephen White Jr. as Seaweed, Kate Donlan as Amber Von Tussle and Colin Evers as Link.

“I know I can’t mention everyone in the cast but they all do a wonderful job. I can’t wait for audiences to see them” Kelly said.

Showtimes for “Hairspray” are 7:30 p.m. on May 6, 7, 11, 12, 13 and 14 and 2 p.m. on May 8 and 15.pray

Splurging on Mom is expected this year

Americans are looking forward to splurging on their mothers with jewelry, electronics and special outings for Mother’s Day this year.

According to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics, U.S. consumers are expected to spend an average of $172.22, down slightly from last year’s record-high $172.63.

Total spending is expected to reach $21.4 billion, with 84.4 percent of consumers surveyed celebrating the holiday.

“It’s clear that Americans want to honor their mothers this Mother’s Day,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “Whether it’s a special meal at her favorite restaurant, jewelry or a new smartphone, families are planning to indulge mom again this year.”

According to the survey, consumers plan to spend $4.2 billion on jewelry (given by 35.3 percent of shoppers), $4.1 billion on special outings such as dinner or brunch (given by 55.2 percent), $2.4 billion on flowers (66.5 percent), $2.2 billion on gift cards (43.2 percent), $1.9 billion respectively on clothing (35.4 percent) and consumer electronics (13.8 percent) and $1.6 billion on personal services, like a day at the spa (22.5 percent). Greeting cards are the most commonly purchased gift at 78.4 percent of those surveyed but account for only $792 million of the projected spending.

Consumers were asked for the first time about “gifts of experience” such as tickets to a concert or sporting event. According to the survey, 24.2 percent want to receive such a gift and 22.3 percent plan to give it.

“Mother’s Day is the time when millions of Americans find special ways to express their love and gratitude for mom,” Prosper Principal Analyst Pam Goodfellow said. “While many will spend a little more than usual to pamper her, some consumers will provide unique experience gifts for the entire family to enjoy together.”

When searching for the perfect gift, 33 percent of consumers will head to department stores and 28.7 percent will shop at specialty stores, while 23.1 percent plan to shop at a local small business. But not everyone will make it to a store: 27.3 percent will shop online, up from 25 percent last year. Among smartphone owners, 29.6 percent will research gift ideas on their phones while 15.5 percent will use them to make a purchase.

The survey of 7,000 consumers was conducted April 5-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.