Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
FDA officials say the goal is to spur innovation of products that may be less harmful for adults, but health advocates are skeptical. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is giving wide leeway to electronic cigarettes as it attempts to push people away from traditional tobacco products.
With the chants of hundreds of teachers ringing in their ears, Kentucky lawmakers voted Friday to override the Republican governor's veto of a two-year state budget that increases public education spending with the help of a more than $480 million tax increase. The votes came as thousands of teachers rallied inside and outside the Capitol, forcing more than 30 school districts to close as Kentucky continued the chorus of teacher protests across the country.
The state of Louisiana received a failing grade of "F" in several categories evaluating available help for smokers, according to a recent study by the American Lung Association. "While progress is being made in the category of Smokefree Air , the report shows that all statewide partners still have a long way to go in improving the physical and financial health of Louisiana smokers," said Mike Rogers, CEO of Smoking Cessation Trust Management Services.
About 3 in 10 U.S. military veterans used some form of tobacco product during 2010-2015, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in today's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report . Tobacco product use was higher among veterans than among non-veterans for males and females across all age groups, except males ages 50 years and older.
Former House Speaker John Boehner says former President Barack Obama is "scared to death" of his wife, Michelle. Citing that reason, Obama maintains that he has not smoked a cigarette in years.
I was stunned as I walked through the darkened and humid arrivals terminal at San Juan's International Airport two days after Hurricane Maria blasted its way across Puerto Rico. It was quiet.
After FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb suggested mandating drastic cuts in nicotine levels, public-health experts in New Zealand last week published an action plan recommending such reductions within five years. Finland's Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is looking into regulating amounts of the drug in tobacco products, while officials in the U.K.'s Department of Health have discussed the U.S. proposal with FDA representatives, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Eight years after it was given the power to meaningfully change smoking in America, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration moved to do so. Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act -- a law enacted under a Democratic Congress and then-President Obama -- to cut the level of nicotine in cigarettes to nonaddictive levels. "A lot of people have been thinking about this for a long time, including experts in the agency, including myself," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview with Bloomberg on Friday.
In this April 23, 2014 file photo, a man smokes an electronic cigarette in Chicago. A House panel is again trying to exempt increasingly popular e-cigarettes from new Food and Drug Administration rules.
Absent meaningful change to the deeming regulations, many believe that thousands of vapor products will be effectively banned, shuttering tens of thousands of small businesses. On May 1, 2017, the Center for Tobacco Products of the Food and U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the FDA would defer enforcement, by three months, of all future compliance deadlines under the rules published in May 2016 affecting e-cigarettes and cigars.
Might Republicans make job-based health insurance taxable? And how can you fight an insurance denial for lung-cancer screening? Also, can pharmacists prescribe drugs? Here are answers to some recent questions from readers. Q: I've heard that Republicans plan to change the system so that I'd have to pay income taxes on my health insurance benefits.
Democratic lawmakers are attempting to ban all flavored vaping products in New Jersey, claiming they lure children to smoking and harm public health. The state Assembly's health committee approved the legislation Monday, but it will still need to pass through both houses of the state legislature before becoming law.
Another group of researchers is sounding the alarm on the supposed dangers of vaping, warning it's "clear that e-cigarettes act as a gateway to smoking." A new study from the University of California, San Francisco claims to have found no evidence electronic cigarettes played a part in the youth smoking rate drop, and are actually converting vape users into full-time smokers.
For a decade, the concept has been a pipe dream of Democrats and doctors bent on finding ways to keep Texans, especially kids, from picking up the habit. But this year it has backing from some powerful Republicans whose support could mean Texas will become just the third state to hike its smoking age above 19. "We can move this bill forward," said Rep. John Zerwas, a Richmond Republican and physician who will champion the effort in the House.
In what may be his last significant act as President Barack Obama's surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy released a report Thursday calling for a major cultural shift in the way Americans view drug and alcohol addiction. The report, "Facing Addiction in America," details the toll addiction takes on the nation _ 78 people die each day from an opioid overdose; 20 million have a substance use disorder _ and explains how brain science offers hope for recovery.
California delivered on its reputation as a testing ground for liberal ideas as state lawmakers wrapped up a legislative session that extended the nation's most ambitious climate change programs, raised the minimum wage to $15 and toughened gun laws. While they failed to address some of the maddening challenges afflicting Californians' daily lives - most notably, skyrocketing housing costs and crumbling roads - lawmakers advanced top priorities for the labor, environmental, gun-control and anti-tobacco movements.
Even accounting for harms people might suffer from vaping who otherwise would not have smoked at all, the researchers found a net public-health gain from the presence of e-cigarettes. So why is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration putting up big regulatory barriers for e-cigarettes starting this month? The reason is simple: regulator over-caution.