ACSH staffers would like to give two thumbs down to the Cleveland City Council for recently passing some “extraordinary” public health bills. The first one will ban the use of trans fat in prepared foods in Cleveland restaurants, while the second is an outdoor smoking ban. Residents will no longer be able to light up in city-owned public parks, recreation areas, swimming pools, picnic shelters, public squares and some malls.

The results of a small study on Pfizer’s smoking cessation drug Chantix (varenicline) underscore the difficulties smokers face when attempting to kick the habit for good. Published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Peter Hajek of the UK Center for Tobacco Control Studies studied 101 middle-aged smokers. Half were randomized to start Chantix four weeks prior to quitting, while a control group took the drug just one week before stopping smoking.

Twenty-five years ago today, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian SSR in the former Soviet Union near the Polish border exploded, causing a global frenzy of fear and panic. It was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history at the time. The incident raised concerns over the safety of the nuclear power industry and the potentially adverse health effects associated with it, and now the world faces similar questions in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.

In terms of interventions during labor and delivery to improve neonatal (birth) outcomes, today’s mantra might be less is more. Or not. Curious as to whether induced labor or Caesarean sections (C-section) affect how newborns fare, Dr. J. Christopher Glantz, a professor of obstetrics at the University of Rochester, reviewed the birth records of nearly 30,000 infants from ten upstate New York community hospitals not equipped with specialized neonatal intensive care units.

According to a new study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, mortality due to hypertension is decreasing, yet it s still greater in people with high blood pressure compared to those without. Study author Dr. Earl S. Ford, medical officer with the U.S.

The Linn County, Iowa Board of Supervisors will vote next month on whether to ban the sale of dissolvable tobacco products. They allege that such a ban will “protect children,” claiming that some of the tobacco products’ packaging resembles candy or breath mints. We beg to differ.

Hopefully the recent whooping cough epidemic in California and now a measles outbreak in Europe will convince anti-vaccine activists that their propaganda is putting thousands of lives at risk.

Give it another nine years or so and every state will have implemented an indoor smoking ban. At least that s what the CDC predicts will occur based on the current pattern of anti-smoking laws. Currently, 26 states have adopted comprehensive indoor smoking bans, while another ten have banned the practice either from workplaces, bars or restaurants but not all three. Only seven states have no indoor smoking restrictions, something Dr.

The headline on a recent article screamed “UC flame-retardant study finds risks for kids.” However, the article, written by Marla Cone in SF Gate, makes no such assertion, therefore, whoever wrote the misleading headline needs to be educated. “The study in question did not find any actual risks for kids.

Just in time for the 41st annual Earth Day last Friday, the news media went wild reporting on a trio of highly flawed studies published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a periodical now notorious for reporting on junk science research.