Free Republic

Light smoking is also tied to poor birth outcomes, even if the mother quits during pregnancy. Smoking even one or two cigarettes a day before or during pregnancy can lead to serious health problems for newborns, according to a new analysis of more than 12 million families. Globally, an estimated 1.7 per cent of pregnant women smoke, though that rate is 8.1 per cent in Europe and 5.9 per cent in the Americas. Smoking during pregnancy can negatively affect the newborn’s health, increasing their risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, restricted infant growth, and death. In the study, which...

When Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022, it marked a new era for the struggling San Francisco company. Twitter, now known as X, is expected to close its San Francisco headquarters this month, leaving behind the Mid-Market neighborhood it has called home since 2012. The company is reportedly moving its headquarters to Austin, Texas, but plans to relocate its San Francisco employees to San José and Palo Alto, ... ... another blow to a city...buffeted by high-profile business departures and once held up Twitter as a key part of its revival. Downtown San Francisco's vacancy rates have ballooned... Confronted...

The latest report by Public Health France revealed alarming data, stating that today, more than one in 10 French women smoke during pregnancy, despite the widespread knowledge of health risks associated with tobacco use. More French women are smoking while pregnant A 2021 study by Public Health France surveyed more than 1,300 mothers of children under five years old, revealing that 13 per cent of the women smoked throughout their pregnancy. The survey showed that 45 per cent of the women had stopped smoking after learning of their pregnancy, while 51 per cent reduced their smoking habits and 4 per...

Smoking is to blame for 20% of US cancer cases and nearly 30% of cancer deaths, the American Cancer Society (ACS) warns in new research. In fact, the organization insists that 4 in 10 cancer cases and nearly half of cancer deaths in American adults 30 and older may have been prevented with a lifestyle change like stopping smoking or losing weight. Dr. Farhad Islami, who penned the Thursday report, said he was “alarmed” that more than 169,800 Americans died in 2019 from smoking. He is calling for tobacco control policies in each state — the ACS finds that raising...

A health guru claimed puffing on cigarettes is linked to longer living — but now he’s trying to extinguish the controversy. “The men in Sardinia have a seven year longer lifespan than the women because they’re smokers. That’s what brings them up,” Dr. Steven Gundry, a former cardiac surgeon and contributor to Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow’s website, insisted in a viral December interview with celebrity physician Dr. Mikhail Varshavski. During the combative, nearly two-hour-long debate, which has racked up over 2.4 million views on YouTube, the far-out physician also cited a 2020 study that found a decrease in deaths from...

The Supreme Court has issued a conditional order calling on the Environmental Protection Ministry, Public Security Ministry, and Health Ministry to take action on the issue of environmental disturbances caused by a person smoking in his home, when the smoke enters the neighbors' homes, Israel Hayom reported. The court has instructed the ministries to enact guidelines on the matter, or enforce the matter of cigarette smoke pollution entering other apartments in a different manner. The government now has 60 days to respond to the order. The Supreme Court's decision follows an appeal submitted by the Avir Naki organization and six...

President Joe Biden’s administration is delaying its potential plan to ban menthol cigarettes after concerns about the political implications ahead of the 2024 election. The administration planned to announce Friday that it will delay its decision on the rule, people familiar with the matter told the WSJ. While the administration plans to argue that it needs to consult more outside groups on the implications of the rule, there is no current timeline to revisit the issue, the sources told the WSJ. Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Xavier Becerra confirmed the news in a statement Friday afternoon, saying the potential...

I’d been reluctant to say this, but now I think it is time…that the ban on smoking is responsible for all this. Been downhill ever since. The rats are out in the open. The good people are in hiding. As at Columbia U, where thousands there and elsewhere are staging an American Kristallnacht. Yes, I know, smoking cigarettes can be hazardous to your health, second-hand smoke included, but back then, before 1995, people had choices. It was live and let live. I smoke a pipe. Can’t write without a pipe, and please spare me the lectures. Sometimes I join the...

“Nobody” should go to jail for “smoking weed,” Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday, despite having prosecuted nearly 2,000 cases of marijuana possession, cultivation, or sale as California’s attorney general. Harris’s public flip-flop is likely due to the politics of a difficult reelection campaign in which the Biden-Harris ticket is losing to former President Donald Trump in 75 percent of 2024 swing states, polling shows. Harris condemned prosecuting those who smoke flowers while speaking at a roundtable event about cannabis reform with musician Fat Joe and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D).

Participants in the I Quit programme, designed to help them quit smoking, need not worry about being fined or prosecuted as it does not presume they have or use vaping products. But if they are caught using or possessing such products, then they will not be immune from criminal prosecution. Senior Minister of State for Health Janil Puthucheary said this on Feb 16 in Parliament when responding to a question from Associate Professor Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC). Prof Lim had asked whether participants in I Quit, the smoking cessation programme by the Health Promotion Board, were offered immunity from prosecution....

A Chinese marathon runner who chain-smoked his entire way through a 26.2 miles race has been disqualified, despite achieving a competitive time. Uncle Chen, nicknamed the 'Smoking Brother', managed to complete the Xiamen Marathon in three hours and 33 minutes on January 7 this year. But despite crossing the finish line only five minutes slower than his 3:28 finish two years ago, the 52-year-old was disqualified for 'smoking on the track'. He placed 574th out of more than 1,500 runners.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson expecting approval of funding for Ukraine... There's new political polling in Germany that puts the Alternative for Germany at 26 percent of the popular vote... Poland's Conservative President swore in a conservative-nationalist government today even though the liberal-secularists won... A former adviser to the jailed ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan says he was the victim of an acid attack... British politics the latest opinion poll from "Redfield and Wilson" showing the Labor Party at 45 percent, the Conservative Party at 25 percent and the Reform Party at 10 percent... "No choice but to kill...

Two men were caught on camera pummeling an NYPD cop in the head and face at a Bronx subway station Monday after the officer and his partner asked the suspects to put out their cigarettes. Kaream McClary, 23, and Izayiah Jessamy, 20, were charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and trespassing over the shocking attack at the Freeman Street subway station around 2:30 p.m., police said. The altercation erupted after two officers requested McClary, Jessamy and a third man stop smoking inside the station — but the trio refused, cops said. When the officers tried removing the...

SMOKING will be banished in Britain for youngsters, King Charles confirmed today. At the state opening of Parliament, the monarch confirmed Rishi Sunak will mount an historic crackdown on cigarettes by raising the legal age every year until there are no smokers left. The PM has previously said: "We must tackle the single biggest entirely preventable cause of ill health disability and death. "And that is smoking, and our country. Smoking causes, one in four cancer deaths." The new plans mean a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette. The tough new anti-smoking measures would see the smoking...

Scientists have uncovered one way tobacco smoking causes cancer and makes it harder to treat by undermining the body's anti-cancer safeguards. Their study links tobacco smoking to harmful changes in DNA called 'stop-gain mutations' that tell the body to stop making certain proteins before they are fully formed. They found these stop-gain mutations were especially prevalent in genes known as 'tumor-suppressors,' which make proteins that would normally prevent abnormal cells from growing. "Our study showed that smoking is associated with changes to DNA that disrupt the formation of tumor suppressors," says Nina Adler. "Without them, abnormal cells are allowed to...

Researchers found that theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (TBS) can improve self-control, resulting in reduced cigarette cravings and decreased smoking. The study revealed that people with nicotine dependence show different brain structures and functions, with these differences possibly affecting their inhibitory control, making it harder to resist the urge to smoke. Theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment could reduce cigarette cravings. A recent study from the University of Missouri School of Medicine indicates a potential alternative method to address cigarette cravings. The research demonstrates that by using theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (TBS) – powerful and quickly changing magnetic pulses that influence brain...

On a recent weekday afternoon, the high-end flagship’s shoe department smelled less like Manolo Blahnik leather and more like a head shop, a stylist told The Post. “It’s jarring when you walk into a high-end department store where you used to smell Chanel perfume and now it’s weed,” the stylist, who requested anonymity, said. (The Post has reached out to Saks for comment). But, she admitted: “Everywhere you go in New York City smells like weed. It’s not just Saks — it’s at Bloomingdales, at the movies … there’s no high-end anymore.” Indeed, brazen New Yorkers are lighting joints on...

Today I became nostalgic for a smell. You wake up on top of the covers in your underwear, and through the gloaming of your bedroom, through the smug pint of water, through the angst and exhaustion and joy and regret that comes from five hours in a nightclub and two hours on the wrong bus home, there is some bitter relief in the smell of smoke on your hair. That smell! Like barbecued teenagers and pepper and beer, almost lovely, pleasantly vile, a kind of lovebite memory, bruised on the throat in passion. That smell. It all seems quite mad...

German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach is pushing for a ban to prevent smoking in cars where minors and pregnant women are passengers. Smoking in cars is not currently illegal in Germany. The plan, which is part of Lauterbach's draft proposal to legalize cannabis, aims to expand the existing Non-Smokers Protection Act. The expansion of the smoking ban, which already applies in public transport, is intended to "ensure the necessary protection from passive smoking for this particularly vulnerable group of people," according to the draft cited by RND. Smoking in cars has been proven to pose higher risks due to the...

It regularly happens that I’ll strike on the seed of an idea for a column that attempts to connect the current news cycle with an analogous event from history, only to discover that the anniversary of that past milepost falls on or near my deadline. I always take this as a sign from a beneficent universe that I am on solid journalistic footing. And so it was last week as I was reading the section of the 44-page federal indictment of former President Donald J. Trump that dealt with the fateful July 2021 meeting in Bedminster, N.J., between Trump and...