The New York City Council approved a bill Wednesday expanding the City’s public smoking ban to beaches and parks after a study showed 57 percent of New Yorkers had cotinine, a nicotine byproduct, in their blood compared with a 45 percent national average. Proponents of the measure argue that it was passed in the name of public health. ACSH’s Cheryl Martin points out that these smoking bans have become a very emotional issue because they pit individual rights against quality of life concerns. “This bill won't necessarily improve public health.
Harm Reduction
The state of Tennessee, one of the largest growers of dark tobacco used in smokeless products such as Swedish snus, is seeing a comeback in smokeless tobacco use and is reaping the benefits. Beyond the financial gains, the increased use of smokeless alternatives to cigarettes offers great potential in terms of harm reduction. Many modern smokeless tobacco products, like snus, come in small packets that are placed between the cheek and gum line. The old types of “spit” and “chaw” may have more adverse health effects and are often viewed as aesthetically problematic. ACSH's Dr.
ACSH has long been a leader in the fight against cigarettes, and we take pride in the work we have done to inform the public about the vast (and little-known) spectrum of real risks posed by cigarettes.At the same time, we firmly believe that educating the public on this important issue requires truth-telling and not appealing to hysteria. Yet we re afraid that this may be what s behind a recent report released by the American Lung Association entitled State of Tobacco Control 2010.The report states, [T]here is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke and that smoke causes damage immediately to the cardiovascular system.
On average Americans live several years fewer than people in a number of other developed countries like France and Japan. This may seem puzzling as Americans spend more on health care, and American patients do, in fact, live longer following diagnosis of cancer and a number of other serious diseases. Well, a report from the National Research Council released yesterday presents a theory why this might be. According to the study authors, Americans live shorter lives because of our greater propensity for obesity and our higher previous rates of smoking. The researchers predict that if U.S.
For women looking for another reason to quit smoking, a new study strongly supports the notion that smoking increases the risk of breast cancer. In a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers followed over 111,000 active smokers from the Nurses’ Health Study from 1976 to 2006 and approximately 36,000 passive smokers from the same cohort between 1982 and 2006.
The New York State Assembly health committee is about to vote on a bill to outlaw e-cigarettes. Yet both the proposed legislation and the hearings on it appear to be founded on a series of fallacies, reports ACSH advisor Dr. Michael Siegel. He writes:
Pregnant women who smoke are ashamed to admit it. That’s the conclusion of a study using data from a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which was conducted from 1999 to 2006. According to the results, 23 percent of pregnant women claimed they don’t smoke even though they had high blood levels of cotinine, a tobacco metabolite and biomarker of tobacco exposure. Secondhand smoke may also increase cotinine levels, but since pregnant women metabolize the chemical more quickly than nonpregnant women, the rate of smoking during pregnancy may actually have been underestimated, researchers of the study published in The American Journal of Epidemiology say.
In our nation’s capital today, hearings are taking place on whether the FDA should ban menthol flavoring in cigarettes. In an especially timely editorial on the subject in the The Daily Caller, ACSH Medical Director Dr. Gilbert Ross notes that “no toxicity is specifically attributed to menthol.” It’s not the smoking of menthol cigarettes, he says, that is the problem, but the smoking of cigarettes per se. He also points out that banning menthol would likely lead to a vast and unaccountable black market in illicit menthol smokes, without an attendant gain for public health.
ACSH takes great pride in the distinction won by our remarkable roster of friends and advisors. Their knowledge and insight informs our work. Today we take delight in offering the perspectives of two men who contacted us about recent subjects of our Dispatch. Bill Godshall, head of Smokefree Pennsylvania and co-author of ACSH’s publication on tobacco harm reduction, writes with regard to a controversy over Star Scientific’s new smokeless tobacco product:
Many people may find it surprising to learn that China s 300 million smokers consume a third of the world s cigarettes. But then 60 percent of Chinese men smoke an average of 15 cigarettes per day. The result, according to the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung disease, is that smoking-related diseases cause one million Chinese deaths each year, and this number is projected to double by the 2020. In our country, the comparable figure is only 400,000 plus preventable deaths also an entirely unacceptable and tragic toll.
Following up on a 2009 law which gave it the power to regulate tobacco products, the FDA announced yesterday that manufacturers must report to the agency by March 22 on whether their products are in any way more dangerous or more addictive than items which were on the market by February 15, 2007. ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross notes that the FDA action permits it to prevent the sale of any new tobacco products, including harm reduction tools like e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. ACSH hopes that the FDA will use its new powers judiciously.
ACSH’s comprehensive assessment, Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn’t Tell You, offered data showing that smoking increases infertility and rates of miscarriage among women. That book was first published in 1996. Recently, a study of 1,300 Japanese women reported in Human Reproduction confirmed and expanded upon our earlier analysis.