Tobacco Articles: category related

Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk

hayden@aviarts.com (Will Dunham , Reuters) — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Heavy marijuana use can boost blood levels of a particular protein, perhaps raising a person's risk of a heart attack or stroke, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday. Dr. Jean Lud Cadet of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, said the findings point to another example of long-term harm from marijuana. But marijuana activists expressed doubt about the findings.

Incense Sticks 'Pose Toxic Health Risk': Joss Sticks 'Like Cigarette Fumes'

Mon, 12 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Burning incense may be good for your spiritual wellbeing, but they could damage your health. The fragrant smoke, used in religious ceremonies and to scent rooms, contains a cocktail of harmful chemicals linked to physical disorders, scientists say. Joss sticks contain carbon monoxide and other toxic fumes The research suggests that breathing in the toxic fumes is as bad for the health as inhaling tobacco smoke. . . . The researchers, from Taiwan and the US, urged people to keep rooms ventiliated when burning the sticks.

Pot smoking blows executive meeting

Tue, 13 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

The conference rooms on the 14th floor of the Hotel Grand Chancellor are high enough for most executives, but teenagers smoking marijuana in a nearby fire escape may have unknowingly elevated proceedings. The teenagers regularly gathered on a fire escape between the hotel and the Wilson Parking building on Cashel Street to smoke marijuana, but the distinctive fumes floated up the stairs and seeped into a room where as many as 600 executives were gathered for conferences. Hotel Grand Chancellor general manager Tim Stonhill said the smell had led to complaints.

Teen Marijuana Use Linked to Later Illness: Self-Medication, Especially for Depression, Raises Risk of Mental Problems, Study Says

Fri, 09 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Teenagers who smoke marijuana put themselves at risk for future mental illness and higher rates of depression, according to a report to be released today by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Although fewer teens overall are smoking marijuana, the report said, there is growing concern that those who do, particularly those who view the drug as a way to cope with depression, do not understand its consequences. It also is not clear whether their parents, who might have indulged when they were younger, understand the risks, experts say. The report, whose release coincides with the start of Mental Health Awareness Month, said studies show links between marijuana use and risk of mental illness later in life, and that use could increase the risk by as much as 40 percent.

A smoking gun in the drugs debate

devinemiranda@hotmail.com (Miranda Devine) — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Dr Alex Wodak's plan to have the Government sell cannabis in little packets at the post office wasn't just a throwaway line to a bunch of senile hippies at the Mardi-Grass festival in Nimbin last weekend. . . . But just because there are Australians who smoke cannabis is not a sound reason to legalise the drug, particularly at a time of mounting scientific evidence of its long-term devastating health effects, in particular its link to schizophrenia. It is exactly the wrong time to legalise cannabis, just as its popularity among young people is diminishing, as shown by the latest Australian Secondary School Students' Use of Alcohol and Drug Survey. . . . It is irresponsible for a doctor in his position to play down serious research showing the link between marijuana and schizophrenia, and not just for those who are already psychotic. What he is doing is no different from the tobacco industry denying the links between smoking and lung cancer. Medical opinion is moving against him, with the journal The Lancet, on July 28 last year, recanting its 1995 editorial which claimed smoking cannabis was not harmful to health, and citing studies which showed "an increase in risk of psychosis of about 40 per cent in participants who had ever used cannabis".

Plastic industry's influence questioned after FDA ruling: Regulators deemed chemical safe based on industry research

webstaff@journalnow.com (THE WASHINGTON POST) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Despite more than 100 published studies by government scientists and university laboratories that have raised health concerns about a chemical compound that is central to the multibillion-dollar plastics industry, the Food and Drug Administration has deemed it safe largely because of two studies, both paid for by an industry trade group. The agency says it has relied on research backed by the American Plastics Council because it had input on its design, monitored its progress and reviewed the raw data. . . . Congressional Democrats have begun investigating any industry influence in regulating BPA. "Tobacco figured this out, and essentially it's the same model," said David Michaels, who was a federal regulator in the Clinton administration. "If you fight the science, you're able to postpone regulation and victim compensation, as well. As in this case, eventually the science becomes overwhelming. But if you can get five or 10 years of avoiding pollution control or production of chemicals, you've greatly increased your product." Mitchell Cheeseman, the deputy director of the FDA's office of food-additive safety, said that the agency is not biased toward industry.

A Georgia Community With an African Feel Fights a Wave of Change: Sapelo Island Journal

Sun, 04 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

During slavery, Sapelo was part of the plantation economy, but after the Civil War blacks began to buy land and formed settlements. Those were consolidated by the island’s last white owner, the tobacco heir R. J. Reynolds Jr., who forced black residents to relocate to Hog Hammock in the ’50s and ’60s, an act still remembered with bitterness.

Contrary imaginations.

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

This is the final installment of a three-part series on radical skepticism and the rise of conspiratorial thinking about science. . . . . Thus far, the strategy of the creationists has been one of radical skepticism: They look for signs of uncertainty, gaps in the fossil record. Like the tobacco companies, the drug manufacturers, and the environmentalists, they need only the shadow of a doubt to make their case: . . . Like the producers of Expelled, Farber portrays mainstream, government-funded science as a repressive regime intolerant of dissent. Harper's has shown a peculiar affinity, over the years, for contrarian science: In addition to the Farber piece, the magazine has run repeated attacks on the theory of evolution from former Washington editor Tom Bethell, not to mention last month's excerpt from David Berlinski. But it's also the place where Richard Hofstadter laid out his seminal thesis on "the paranoid style in American politics"—an analysis of the conspiracy-minded, radical right that might just as well describe today's radical skeptics of science. The essay first appeared in November of 1964, the same year as the first surgeon general's report on the dangers of smoking, and not long before the tobacco companies geared up the machines of manufactured uncertainty. The paranoid style, Hofstadter wrote, "is nothing if not scholarly in its technique."

Lincoln No-Accord Stance Avoids Tobacco-Sized Awards (Update1)

mcfisk@bloomberg.net (Margaret Cronin Fisk) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc., the world's largest welding-equipment maker, has escaped the fate of tobacco and asbestos producers by scoring upset victories over trial lawyers claiming its products caused symptoms resembling Parkinson's disease. Workers' attorneys won only 3 of 15,000 cases filed this decade after predicting litigation would bankrupt the industry. New suits against 12 welding-products makers fell from 9,510 in 2003 to 57 last year, said John Beisner, a lawyer for the companies. Lincoln was named in most of the cases.

Alzheimer's disease: To have and have not: Some people show the cellular signs of dementia without being demented

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

A paper presented at the American Academy of Neurology's Annual Meeting in Chicago this week may cast some light on this mystery—and perhaps how to slow down the disease's progress. Deniz Erten-Lyons, who works at Oregon Health and Science University, in Portland, and her colleagues think they have found a consistent feature of the brains of those who have the internal stigmata of Alzheimer's disease without suffering the outward manifestations: their brains are larger. In particular, their hippocampuses are about 10% bigger than average.

On a day when every other news outlet covering the American Academy of Neurology's Annual Meeting reported on the research that drinking and smoking are two of the most important preventable risk factors for Alzheimer's--The Economist opts for the "big brain" aspect. Typical. The Economist is known for dismissing the health effects of tobacco use, as well as any attempt to mitigate those harms. Some have excused The Economist because, after all, it's primarily oriented towards finance, not health. Yet The Economist publishes this, and other health items, and none of them--none-- inform about the health effects of smoking. Your big brain article frets about science's inability to slow the progress of Alzheimer's. Other, more responsible news outlets covering the same meeting quoted Dr Ranjan Duara on the subject: "It's possible that if we can reduce or eliminate heavy smoking and drinking, we could substantially delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease." Reading the Economist, who would know? Many people have only one major source of news. The Economist does its readers a grave and terrible disservice.

Germany: Marijuana Smokers Were Poisoned With Lead in Leipzig

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

They had stomach cramps, nausea, anemia and fatigue, and some even had a telltale bluish line along their gums — classic signs of lead poisoning. But the cases, last year in Leipzig, Germany, puzzled doctors. Lead poisoning is rare in Germany, and yet here were 29 cases in just a few months. The doctors noticed a pattern: the patients were young, from 16 to 33; they were students or unemployed; and they had body piercings and a history of smoking. In a letter published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, the doctors wrote, “On questioning, all the patients eventually conceded that they were regular users of marijuana.” Three provided samples for testing. Sure enough, their marijuana was full of lead. One bag bought from a dealer even contained lead particles big enough to see, which meant the lead must have been added deliberately, rather than being absorbed into the plant from contaminated soil.

Medicine: Cheap, Homemade MRI Does a Better Job Imaging Lungs Than the Real Thing

commenting+378261.5123703@gizmodo.com (Adam Frucci) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

If you need an MRI, you can always just use this makeshift MRI that was built using a cardboard tube, coils of wire, and other items that you can pick up at your local hardware store. The thing is, it really works. Built by a couple of researchers at Harvard, the makeshift MRI was cost less than $100,000 to make, but it does a better job of imaging the lungs than traditional MRIs do. That's because while traditional MRIs are great at imaging liquid within the body, the lungs are full of air, which doesn't come out in the scans. Not this hobbled together contraption; it uses a weak magnetic field to image aspects of the lungs that are invisible to all other imaging techniques. So really, this is a very specialized MRI machine, albeit one that was essentially built in a garage by a couple of crazy geniuses. So no, you won't be able to go down the street to your neighborhood mad scientist's shed to get an MRI on the cheap anytime soon, but it's a nice thought, isn't it? [Technology Review]

Clinical Trial Volunteers Uneasy About Some Financial Ties: They were least surprised when researchers got paid but more upset when they owned stock

editors@healthday.com — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Many volunteers in clinical studies aren't overly concerned if researchers have financial conflicts, but there is some loss of trust, suggests a U.S. study. "Though peoples' willingness to take part in a hypothetical clinical trial did not suffer substantially based on the types of financial disclosures, and many of our study respondents were still likely to say that they would participate despite researchers' financial interests, we captured a sense of unease about some financial ties -- particularly owning company stock -- that did affects peoples' attitudes and trust in clinical research," Dr. Jeremy Sugarman, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement. "We need to keep this in mind as we determine how best to disclose acceptable financial interests to fully inform potential study participants," Sugarman said. He and colleagues at Duke University and Wake Forest University sent a description of a hypothetical clinical drug trial to 3,623 adults with asthma or diabetes. Each description included one of five different financial disclosures. . . . The study was published online April 2 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Profile of Robert Mugabe, longtime ruler of Zimbabwe

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

He came to power in 1980 after a seven-year bush war for black rule, serving first as prime minister and then as president. At independence, he was hailed for his policies of racial reconciliation and development that brought education and health to millions. Zimbabwe's economy thrived, and Mugabe appealed to whites to stay in the country. Twenty years later, many wished they hadn't. Mugabe ordered the often-violent seizure of white-owned farms on behalf of a landless black majority. But instead, he gave the farms to black relatives, friends and cronies. . . . Mugabe is now 84 years old. During his rule, the average life expectancy of Zimbabweans has fallen from 60 to 35 years.

Zimbabwe Opposition Declares Victory

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

At independence, Mugabe was hailed for his policies of racial reconciliation and development that brought education and health to millions who had been denied those services under colonial rule. Zimbabwe's economy thrived on exports of food, minerals and tobacco. The unraveling began when Mugabe ordered the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms turned over to blacks, mainly relatives, friends and cronies who allowed cultivated fields to be taken over by weeds. Today, a third of the population depends on imported food handouts. Another third has fled the country and 80 percent is jobless. Inflation is the highest in the world at more than 100,000 percent and people suffer crippling shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 to 35 years.