May 27th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Health Policy, News
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The Center for Disease Control published the top ten public health achievements from 2001-2010, the first decade of the 21st century. In no order they are:
- Vaccine-preventable Diseases – new vaccines for herpes zoster, pneumonia, HPV and rotavirus have saved thousands of lives When you add in the older vaccines for diptheria, pertussus, tetanus and measles/mumps millions of lives have been saved around the world. (I saw diptheria in Haiti and it is horrible)
- Tobacco Control- We have been battling tobacco since 1964 but there is finally progress with more states enacting smoke-free laws and raising cigarette taxes. By 2010, the FDA banned flavored cigarettes and established restrictions on youth access. We have a long way to go. Smoking costs us all about $193 billion a year on medical costs and loss of productivity.
- Motor Vehicle Safety -Enforcing seat belt and child safety legislation has reduced deaths from crashes. Teen drivers have new policies too.
- Cardiovascular Disease Prevention-During the past decade, age-adjusted heart disease and stroke deaths declined. What worked? Treating hypertension, elevated cholesterol and smoking…along with improved treatment and medication. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
May 6th, 2010 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
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A number of colleagues recently mentioned to me that they’ve heard that new smokeless tobacco products are very dangerous because they cause a lot of poisonings to children.
When I checked the Internet, sure enough — there were plenty of news headlines along the lines of “Tobacco mints tied to poisoning in kids” and “Tobacco candy poisoning kids, study shows.” I thought this looked interesting, particularly as I was unaware of any “tobacco candy.” Read more »
This post, Why Tobacco Should Be Childproof, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
February 7th, 2010 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Research
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The journal Tobacco Control has on its website a list of the top 10 most read articles each month. One paper that has been near the top ever since it was published in 2005, was written by Dr Kjell Bjartveit and his colleague Dr Tverdal, on “Health consequences of smoking 1-4 cigrettes per day.”
The study included 23,521 men and 19,201 women, aged 35–49 years when they were initially screened for cardiovascular disease risk factors in the mid 1970s and followed them up to 2002. The researchers calculated the total risks of death and relative risks adjusted for confounding variables, of dying from ischaemic heart disease, all cancer, lung cancer, and from all causes, and examined the effects of regular smoking of only a few cigarettes per day. Read more »
This post, Classic Study: There’s No Safe Threshold For Cigarette Smoking, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
