Paradoxically the US anti-trust laws intended to protect competition and keep prices down for consumers could kill more Americans when it comes to the merger of two of the three largest tobacco companies.
Addiction & Substance Abuse
White House is the reason children are still working in US tobacco fields
A Human Rights Watch report on children working in US tobacco fields resurrects Obama Administration decisions to abandon a Labor Department regulation to protect youngsters working in agriculture.
Addiction & Substance Abuse
How healthy is your county? This year’s County Health Rankings underscore that place matters
This year’s County Health Rankings once again illustrate why geography and good health go hand-in-hand. They’re also a poignant reminder that there may be no better way to improve health for all than by focusing on the social determinants of health.
Addiction & Substance Abuse
Fifty years and 8 million lives saved since the first surgeon general’s smoking report
It’s probably my earliest public health memory — the image of Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and his grandfatherly beard on the television warning my elementary school self about the dangers of smoking. He was the first doctor I knew by name.
A new report finds most states spend a small fraction of their tobacco settlement and tax income on smoking prevention and cessation. Congress keeps cutting the ACA’s Prevention and Public Health Fund. An Institute of Medicine Committee recommends ways to assure we stop making these short-sighted cuts.
When Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) passed away Monday at the age of 89, the Senate lost one of its longest-serving members and the US lost a public-health champion.
Addiction & Substance Abuse
Study: Banning smoking in subsidized housing could save millions in health care costs
Another day, another study that shows investing in public health interventions can make a serious dent in health care spending. A new study has found that banning smoking in all U.S. subsidized housing could yield cost savings of about $521 million every year.
A recent Op-Ed in the New York Times proposes an end game strategy for ending tobacco use in the U.S.
A new report by the European Environment Agency offers more than a dozen case studies for us to examine the question: could we have taken action earlier to prevent harm to human health or the environment?
Addiction & Substance Abuse
State tobacco prevention funds going up in smoke, threatening declines in smoking rates
By Kim Krisberg Public health vs. tobacco. It’s a David and Goliath kind of story. The kind in which the good guys win and everyone sleeps a little sounder knowing that the bigger, richer guys don’t hold all the power. Of course, the story isn’t so cut and dry. While public health has been slowly […]