Ministers are considering switching all brand packs to a standard colour so brightly coloured packages will not lure prospective smokers from a young age. Retailers will be initially be asked to cover up their displays of cigarettes so that children are not attracted by the packaging, but ministers want to examine the use of plain packets as well. Ministers want to see if changing cigarette packet appearance could deter children from taking up smoking and support people who are trying to quit. Plain packs would just show only basic information and health and picture warnings in order to break ... Jump to full article >>

Is the Great American Smokeout relevant to people who are already trying to kick another addiction? Yes, say some experts. In a report released Thursday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration encouraged smoking-cessation support for people who are in drug and alcohol rehab. The report shows that more substance abuse treatment facilities are offering nicotine-replacement therapy to clients. Whether to address smoking in treatment centers has long been a thorny question. Some therapists feel their clients have enough on their plate trying to recover from a drug addition w ... Jump to full article >>

It should come as no surprise to anyone that smoking during pregnancy is bad for babies. But we’ll bet you didn’t know that exposure to cigarettes in utero could set a kid up for a life of crime. By analyzing the health records of nearly 4,000 Rhode Island mothers – including some who were heavy smokers while they were pregnant in the 1950s and 1960s – and comparing them with the criminal records of their offspring more than 30 years later, researchers found that people whose moms smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day during those crucial nine months were 31% more likely to have been ar ... Jump to full article >>

Diseased lungs, dead bodies, a man on a ventilator and mothers blowing smoke in their children’s faces are among the images that may end up on cigarette packs in the U.S. Health officials are considering the striking pictures and accompanying messages in their effort to revamp tobacco warning labels. The 36 ‘graphic health warnings,’ unveiled on Wednesday, aim to depict the negative effects of smoking, and they will be required on all cigarette packages in 2012. More prominent warnings on cigarette packages, including larger text labels, were included in a June 2009 law putti ... Jump to full article >>

Tobacco use, tuberculosis (TB), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are all burgeoning problems in resource poor settings. The evidence of their potentially devastating effects on global public health is increasing and they require a coordinated approach for control. These diseases all occur in predominantly resource-poor countries. They are perpetuated by poverty and inadequate resources, was the clear mandate from the consultative workshop organized by the TB and Poverty sub-working group of the Stop TB Partnership in India (29-30 October 2010). It is expected that the scientifi ... Jump to full article >>

LONDON — Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study. British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole. Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison. Heroin, crack cocaine ... Jump to full article >>

One in four cases of bowel cancer could be prevented if people drank less alcohol, cut down on red meat and took more exercise. Watching waist size and stopping smoking are also important ways of avoiding one of Britain’s biggest killers, claim researchers. They identified five lifestyle changes that could cut the risk of bowel cancer by 23 per cent, and some other cancers. A study published today in the British Medical Journal looked at alcohol intake, smoking, waist circumference, diet and exercise. The research shows that taking up just one of the healthy lifestyle recommendations could ... Jump to full article >>

Teenage girls are being bribed with high street shopping vouchers to receive a highly controversial vaccine. A health trust is promising them £45 in tokens for stores such as HMV, Argos and Debenhams if they agree to the cervical cancer jab, which protects against a sexually-transmitted virus that can cause tumours. Opponents say the vaccine – dubbed the ‘promiscuity jab’ – encourages girls to have sex earlier than they would. Only last week the government said it could not afford to fund Labour’s pledge that all cancer victims should have one-to-one nursing ... Jump to full article >>

When I was at university, hypnotists were regular features at the May ball. One summer, I was lured on to a stage, somewhat the worse for drink, and persuaded that I was a lovelorn kangaroo in search of a marsupial mate. I’m not sure how effective the hypnosis was – I certainly remember acting like an idiot, but I suppose it did give me an excuse for doing so. Clinical hypnotherapy is something different altogether. By accessing your unconscious mind, and deconditioning established habits, hypnotherapists claim to be able to treat everything from smoking addiction and depression to impoten ... Jump to full article >>

FOR much of the early 20th century, Winston-Salem was the biggest city in North Carolina. Its fortunes, like those of most of North Carolina, centred on tobacco and textiles: in 1940 60% of the city’s populace worked for one of the Hanes textile companies or for R.J. Reynolds (RJR), a tobacco company that was the city’s largest employer. But that was long before Hanes began moving much of its production offshore, and before the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (under which the tobacco companies agreed in 1998 to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in damages for harming people’s healt ... Jump to full article >>

In the calm lines of the notebooks’ closely spaced copperplate are records of lightning strikes, gun fights and mutinous crews. There are courts martial, shipwrecks and even murder during the long ocean journeys undertaken by the doctors’ ships between 1793 and 1880. The patients were the ratings, officers, emigrants and convicts being taken – often permanently – to other parts of the Empire and the records of their treatment provide a detailed glimpse into the past. More than 1,000 Royal Navy Medical Officer Journals have been made accessible to the public following a ... Jump to full article >>