If you’re looking for a true stinker of a campaign slogan, you couldn’t do much better than “Vote for me, I’ll raise your taxes!” (Don’t believe it? Ask Walter Mondale. It ain’t easy to lose 49 states.) But suppose you changed …
Tobacco
U.S. Cigarette Warning Labels Are About to Get Graphic
Cigarette packages currently come with a tidy black-bordered warning label, reminding users that smoking causes lung cancer, birth defects and heart disease. Dutiful, yes, and easily disregarded.
Anxiety Keeps Some Smokers from Quitting
Breaking news! Nervous people smoke more than other people. More breaking news: they also find it harder to quit. Those may not be the kinds of insights that get the attention of the Nobel committee, but a new study in the …
AHA: Don’t Be Fooled, Smokeless Tobacco Isn’t Exactly Safe
If you think chewing on tobacco is any better for your health than smoking it, the American Heart Association (AHA) respectfully disagrees. The national nonprofit group released a statement Monday discouraging smokers from …
Declines in U.S. Smoking Rates Remain Stalled at 20%
For the fifth year in a row, the decline in smoking rates among adult Americans remains stalled. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 20% of adults still smoke, a figure that hasn’t changed since 2005.
Can Eating Vegetables Prevent Lung Cancer?
If you smoke, you know you’re putting yourself at increased risk of lung cancer. But if you boost the variety of fruits and vegetables that you eat, you may be able to lower those odds a bit.
Scientists in Europe report in the American Association for Cancer Research’s journal that smokers who consumed the greatest variety of fruits …
YouTube Videos Promote Smoking, Study Finds
Cigarette ads that would not be allowed on television are now popping up on YouTube, according to a new study this week in the journal Tobacco Control.
Researchers from New Zealand searched the popular post-your-own-video site for references to five major cigarette brands — Marlboro, L&M, Winston, Benson & Hedges, and Mild Seven …
The world’s costliest disease
Heart disease may be the world’s leading cause of death, but cancer is the planet’s No.1 “economic killer,” according to a report this week from the American Cancer Society. The AP reports:
Cancer’s economic toll was $895 billion in 2008 — equivalent to 1.5 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, the report says. That’s in terms
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How Parental Smoking Affects Kids
There’s plenty of data showing how harmful smoking can be, and that goes for both smokers and the people around them. Two studies published in Pediatrics point out how indirect the effects can be. A study of paternal smoking in Hong Kong finds that children whose fathers smoke are heavier at seven and 11 years old than their …
Will new FDA regulations curb tobacco use?
Exactly one year after Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act that gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco, a new set of rules is taking effect to curb the use of deceptive marketing terms and limit children’s access to tobacco products. Among the new regulations that
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When kids benefit from public smoking bans
A study conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health finds that children and adolescents who don’t live with smokers experience substantial health benefits from no smoking laws. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers also found that kids who live in counties with public smoking bans but are exposed to secondhand
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Smokeless tobacco that looks too much like candy?
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Northern Ohio Poison Control Center argue that smokeless tobacco pellets manufactured by Camel look and taste so much like candy that their appeal to small children could put them at risk for poisoning. In a study released today by the
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Four risk factors reducing U.S. life expectancy
A new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington suggests that four preventable risk factors—high blood pressure, smoking, high blood sugar and overweight/obesity—are significantly reducing life expectancy across the U.S. In the new
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