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Quitting Smoking Doubles Survival in Early Stage Lung Cancer

2010-01-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

'Dramatic' results show that it's never too late to kick the habit, experts say

THURSDAY, Jan. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Quitting smoking after a diagnosis of early stage lung cancer doubles the odds that a patient will live another five years, a new study finds.

"The results are quite dramatic. I don't think anybody would have expected such a dramatic difference. It's incredible," said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association. "The important caveat is that this is early lung cancer."

Early stage lung malignancies can have cure rates of 50 percent to 60 percent, Edelman noted. The tragedy is that very few lung cancers (perhaps 20 percent, the authors stated) are diagnosed at this early stage.

The new findings are published in the Jan. 21 online edition of BMJ.

According to an accompanying journal editorial, fewer than one-third of all patients with lung cancer are still alive just one year after diagnosis.

Of course, the best way to prevent lung cancer is to never smoke, or to quit if you do smoke. People who quit smoking have a dramatically lower incidence of being diagnosed with lung cancer over the life span, experts note.

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FDA approves Crestor for people who have no health problem to correct

2009-12-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

(NaturalNews) Big Pharma has been trending this direction for a long time: marketing medicines to people who don't need them and who have nothing wrong with their health. It's all part of a ploy to position prescription drugs as nutrients -- things you need to take on a regular basis in order to prevent disease.

The FDA recently gave its nod of approval on the matter, announcing that Crestor can now be advertised and prescribed as a "preventive" medicine. No longer does a patient need to have anything wrong with them to warrant this expensive prescription medication: They only need to remember the brand name of the drug from television ads.

This FDA approval for the marketing of Crestor to healthy people is a breakthrough for wealthy drug companies. Selling drugs only to people who are sick is, by definition, a limited market. Expanding drug revenues requires reaching people who have nothing wrong with them and convincing them that taking a cocktail of daily pharmaceuticals will somehow keep them healthy.

All this is, of course, the greatest quackery we've yet seen from Big Pharma, because once this floodgate of "preventive pharmaceuticals" is unleashed, the drug companies will be positioned to promote a bewildering array of other preventive chemicals you're supposed to take at the same time. Did you take your anti-cancer pill today? How about your anti-diabetes pill? Anti-cholesterol pill? Don't forget your anti-Alzheimer's pill, too.

Medications are not vitamins
The very idea that these drugs can somehow prevent a person from becoming sick in the future strains the boundaries of scientific credibility. Only natural therapies like nutrition can prevent the onset of disease, not patented chemicals that don't belong in the human body in the first place.

The logical argument of the drug companies who push these "preventive" prescriptions is essentially that the human body is deficient in pharmaceuticals, and that deficiency can only be corrected by taking whatever brand-name drugs they show you on television. Forget about deficiencies in zinc, or vitamin D, or living enzymes; what your body really needs is more synthetic chemicals!

The FDA agrees with this loopy logic. And why wouldn't it? Subscribing to this pharmaceutical delusion is an easy way to instantly expand Big Pharma's customer base by tens of millions. Overnight, the market for Crestor ballooned from a few million people with high cholesterol to the entire U.S. population of 300 million people.

If Crestor can help healthy people be healthier (which it can't, but let's play along with this delusion for the sake of argument), then it's only a matter of time before they start adding Crestor to infant formula. I mean, why not? If it's so good for healthy people, then it must make babies healthier, too, right?

So let's add Crestor to sports drinks. Let's sprinkle it into the iodized salt supply. Let's drip it into the municipal water! (Don't laugh: This idea of dripping cholesterol drugs into the water supply has already been suggested by more than one doctor.) Let's merge the pharmaceutical supply with the food supply and charge people prescription drugs prices for "functional" foods laced with these chemicals!

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NJ Senate Approves ‘E-Cigarette’ Restrictions

2009-12-19T08:23:00.000-08:00

TRENTON – The state Senate voted 38-0 Thurday to approve a bill to apply the provisions of the “New Jersey Smoke Free Air Act” to restrict the use of electronic smoking devices, commonly known as “e-cigarettes.”

The bill (S-3053) would expand the definition of “smoking” to include e-cigarettes and extend the ban on smoking by minors to include the use of e-cigarettes. It would define smoking as the burning or inhaling of tobacco or any other matter than can be smoked or inhaled, or the inhaling of smoke or vapor from an electronic smoking device.

“When a user puffs on an e-cigarette, which is a stainless steel tube designed to look like a real cigarette, they inhale a vaporized solution that usually contains nicotine,” Sen. Bob Gordon (D-Bergen) said. “The liquid often contains flavoring, such as chocolate or cherry. It seems obvious the people who make these devices are trying to make them attractive to younger people.

The e-cigarettes have a glowing red tip so that they look like a real cigarette. The heated solution produces a mist that is inhaled and exhaled, and a light-emitting diode at the end of the tube simulates the glow of burning tobacco. The device is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

“The battery warms the liquid nicotine and propylene glycol from a replaceable plastic cartridge when a person inhales the device,” Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) said. “Propylene glycol, which is used in antifreeze, is the liquid that vaporizes when a person exhales and produces a mist that is nearly identical in appearance to tobacco smoke. According to a 2009 statement by Health Canada, the Canadian federal government agency with regulatory jurisdiction over health issues, inhaling propylene glycol is a known irritant.”

The “New Jersey Smoke Free Air Act” already prohibits the smoking of a cigar, cigarette, pipe or any other matter or substance which contains tobacco or any other matter that can be smoked in indoor public places and workplaces.

“Our bill would update the current law to define an electronic smoking device to mean an electronic device that can be used to deliver nicotine or other substances to the person inhaling from the device, including an electronic cigarette, cigar, cigarillo, or pipe,” Gordon said.

The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has refused entry to shipments of e-cigarettes coming into this country on the grounds that these are unapproved drug device products; however, these devices have made their way into this country and are sold online and in some shopping mall kiosks.

Under the bill, the penalties that currently apply to a person who smokes tobacco in an indoor public place or workplace would apply to a person who uses an e-cigarette: a fine of not less than $250 for the first offense, $500 for the second offense and $1,000 for each subsequent offense.

U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) has called for the federal Food and Drug Administration to remove e-cigarettes from the market. The ban on e-cigarettes is also supported by The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

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12-4-2009 'Higher risk' of lung cancer from smoking first thing

2009-12-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

Smokers who light up on waking display higher levels of nicotine than those who wait, regardless of the number of cigarettes smoked, US research shows.

Scientists measured smokers' levels of cotinine, a by-product of nicotine which has been shown to reflect the risk of developing lung cancer.

Waiting until you had eaten breakfast reduced the amount of this chemical.

The Penn State College of Medicine study suggests the earlier smokers may need more help to give up.

The reasons for the differing levels were unclear, but are thought likely to reflect a more intense way of smoking among those who light up first thing - as their need may be greater than those who can wait.

More than 250 healthy people who smoked every day were included in the study, which was published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

Waking desire

Among smokers who consumed 20 cigarettes each day, cotinine levels varied dramatically - with the top levels nearly 75 times higher than the lowest levels.

Not all smokers are the same and approaches to smoking reduction may need to account for individual smoking behaviours such as the intensity and frequency of puffing, cravings, and physiological symptoms

The highest levels were seen among those who lit up within 30 minutes of waking - categorised as high dependency.

"These people may require a more intensive intervention than other smokers to help them quit smoking on a sustained or permanent basis," said report author Joshua Muscat, professor of public health at Penn State College of Medicine.

"Not all smokers are the same and approaches to smoking reduction may need to account for individual smoking behaviours such as the intensity and frequency of puffing, cravings, and physiological symptoms."

A spokesperson for the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation welcomed the research, which it said would help further understanding of smoking habits and addiction to tobacco.

"It is however a small study (252 participants), and therefore the findings should be taken with caution, and we are not entirely sure that any major conclusions on the future of smoking cessation can be made from this.

"We concur with the authors that more research is needed in this area."

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11-19-2009 Experts Worry About Fading Attention to Smoking Threat

2009-11-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

The U.S. smoking rate rose in 2008 for the first time in 15 years, and experts worry that the public has become complacent about the public-health threat posed by tobacco use, the Associated Press reported Nov. 13.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that 21 percent of U.S. adults smoked in 2008, up from 19.8 percent in 2007. Experts say that public attention to the problem has slipped as smoking rates generally declined, and that governments have cut funding for smoking-prevention programs.

Tobacco companies also are seen as resurgent and have had success in discounting its products to offset rising taxes: the average price of a pack of cigarettes rose just 2 percent annually between 2004 and 2008 after increasing 63 percent between 1997 and 2004.

"Clearly, we've hit a wall in reducing adult smoking," said Vince Willmore of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

A CDC survey found that West Virginia and Indiana had the highest smoking rates in the U.S., with more than one in four residents current smokers, and Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee also had high smoking rates. Only 9 percent of Utah residents were smokers, and experts said that the states that were most proactive about preventing smoking tended to have the lowest smoking rates.

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11-15-09 - A to Z of what's right with America

2009-11-14T20:42:00.000-08:00

(NaturalNews) Ah, America. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Baseball and apple pie. It's all so irresistibly attractive that it's begging for a list of 26 awesome things about America.

So I asked the NaturalNews Facebook team to come up with an A-to-Z list of what's right with America. You'll find the complete list below.

A to Z of what's right with America - The list

A is for Alternative medicine - Although the Associated Press hasn't figured it out yet, alternative medicine is cheaper, safer and more effective than pharmaceuticals and surgery.

B is for Breastfeeding - Because the best milk is mother's milk.

C is for the Constitution - Without it, this website wouldn't even exist and free speech would be stifled.

D is for Democracy - Despite all its shortcomings, Democracy is still the best form of government the world has come up with.

E is for Education - Although it's not perfect, we still have some outstanding schools and teachers teaching our nation's youth some important skills and knowledge.

F is for Farmer's Markets - The last place in the country where you can still buy real food grown by real people.

G is for home Gardening - Turn your lawn into a garden and you'll have your own food supply!

H is for Herbs - The best medicine, made by Mother Nature.

I is for Internet - The last medium of freedom. Without it, we'd all still be plugged into the Matrix.

J is for Juicing - Because drinking raw, living vegetable juices is perhaps the single best thing you can do for your own health.

K is for Kayaking- And all the other stuff you can do in the great outdoors across America's amazing national and state parks.

L is for Liberty - While we still have some left, it might be a good idea to protect it.

M is for Meditation and Massage therapy - Both are really healthy, relaxing activities available all across America.

N is for Nutritional supplements - Even though the FDA has tried to destroy the industry, you can still find an amazing assortment of nutritional supplements across the USA.

O is for Organics - Thank God we have chemical-free foods and personal care products available -- and an organization working to protect them (www.OrganicConsumers.org).

P is for the People - Without whom this nation would not exist. The American People have amazing diversity, creativity and resilience.

Q is for Quantum shift in consciousness - It's happening right now, and it could help uplift the nation into a whole new paradigm soon.

R is for Random acts of kindness - Despite all its problems, America is still a place where you can find kind, compassionate people who are willing to lend a helping hand.

S is for Superfoods - America offers a huge, diverse assortment of medicinal superfoods. Just visit any health food store!

T is for Traditional Chinese Medicine - Okay, it doesn't sound truly American, but the fact is that TCM is achieving wild success across the country, and now many American TCM practitioners are helping people heal with the power of medicinal herbs and acupuncture.

V is for Voting - Although it isn't perfect, it's still the best way we have going for people to exercise some control over the laws of the land.

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11-10-2009 Will Anyone in Their Right Mind Actually Buy Into These Three New Vaccines?

2009-11-10T08:58:00.000-08:00

A storm has erupted over the announcement last month that an experimental AIDS vaccine tested in Thailand proved modestly effective. It was billed as a major scientific advance – the long-awaited hard evidence that it is possible to inoculate people against AIDS. But now the trial has been called into question in a way that is overblown and possibly destructive.

But this isn’t the first time the efficacy and safety of a vaccine has been called into question. The government recently announced that $10 million of stimulus money would be used to fund a phase 3 clinical trial of a anti-smoking vaccine produced by Nabi Pharmaceuticals of Rockville, Md. However, another company working on a similar vaccine has not been so successful.

Cytos Biotechnology Ltd. said this week that a trial of its nicotine vaccine had failed to reduce smoking behaviors. The study, which is continuing, involved 200 smokers who were motivated to quit. The researchers found that the vaccine, designed to bind nicotine in the blood and prevent it from reaching the brain, was safe and well tolerated. But apparently it did not stimulate high enough levels of antibodies to produce the desired response.

The moment evidence was found that obesity may be linked to a virus, opportunistic drug company researchers dove into developing an “obesity vaccine.” Now researchers say their obesity vaccine could be ready for market in five years. Searching for genetic clues to the obesity epidemic, in the hopes of developing a vaccine against it, is not the answer.

New York Times October 18, 2009
New York Sun August 21, 2007
Los Angeles Times October 6, 2009
Bloomberg September 28, 2009
PreventDisease.com September 29, 2009

"This is what honest intelligent vaccine critics have been saying all along," said Dr. Leonard Horowitz, a Harvard-trained emerging diseases expert. Well folks, at the rate of vaccine development, it’s just a matter of time before some genius develops an anti-ugly vaccine to fit everyone into some predefined measure of beauty, and market it as something without which we cannot live healthy prosperous lives.

There really should be no doubt in your mind at this point that vaccines are big business. And for good reason – laws are in place that indemnifies vaccine manufacturers from financial ruin should things go wrong. Manufacturers have complete insulation from ANY prosecution for harm or damage from their product.

It’s a near foolproof business venture as far as criminal and financial liability is concerned. And the medical industry and the general public have been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that the basic premise of vaccinations is wholly sound and beyond debate.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Report: 237 millionaires in Congress

2009-11-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

Talk about bad timing.

As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress.

Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That’s 44 percent of the body – compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall.

CRP says California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the richest lawmaker on Capitol Hill, with a net worth estimated at about $251 million. Next in line: Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), worth about $244.7 million; Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), worth about $214.5 million; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), worth about $209.7 million; and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), worth about $208.8 million.

All told, at least seven lawmakers have net worths greater than $100 million, according to the Center’s 2008 figures.

“Many Americans probably have a sense that members of Congress aren’t hurting, even if their government salary alone is in the six figures, much more than most Americans make,” said CRP spokesman Dave Levinthal. “What we see through these figures is that many of them have riches well beyond that salary, supplemented with securities, stock holdings, property and other investments.”

The CRP numbers are somewhat rough estimates – lawmakers are required to report their financial information in broad ranges of figures, so it’s impossible to pin down their dollars with precision. The CRP uses the mid-point in the ranges to build its estimates.

Senators’ estimated median reportable worth sunk to about $1.79 million from $2.27 million in 2007. The House’s median income was significantly lower and also sank, bottoming out at $622,254 from $724,258 in 2007.

But CRP’s analysis suggests that some lawmakers did well for themselves between 2007 and 2008, even as many Americans lost jobs and saw their savings and their home values plummet.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gained about $9.2 million. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) gained about $3 million, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) had an estimated $2.6 million gain, and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) gained about $2.8 million.

Some lawmakers have profited from investments in companies that have received federal bailouts; dozens of lawmakers are invested in Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

Among executive branch officials, CRP says the richest is Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary L. Schapiro, with a net worth estimated at $26 million.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is next, worth an estimated $21 million. President Barack Obama is the sixth-wealthiest, worth about an estimated $4 million. Vice President Joe Biden has often tagged himself as an original blue collar man. The CRP backs him up, putting his net worth at just $27,000.

He’s hardly the worst off.

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), freshman Rep. Harry Teague (D-N.M.), Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.), Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.) and Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) each a net worth of less than zero, CRP says.

One caveat on those numbers: Federal financial disclosure laws don’t require members to list the value of their personal residences. That information could alter the net worth picture for many lawmakers.

Even so, Levinthal said, “It is clear that some members are struggling financially.

“Over a calendar year, one’s wealth can change drastically. Many peoples’ investments took a nose dive over night in the last year,” he said.

A number of lawmakers are estimated to have suffered double-digit percentage lossed in their net worth from 2007 to 2008. The biggest losers include Kerry, who lost a whopping $127.4 million; Warner lost about $28.1 million; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lost about $11.8 million; and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) lost about $10.1 million.

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11-5-09 'Light' Cigarettes Hurt Quit-Smoking Effort

2009-11-07T07:27:00.000-08:00

Study Shows Switching to 'Light' Cigarettes May Undermine Resolve to Stop Smoking Habit

WebMD Health News

Nov. 5, 2009 -- Want to quit smoking? Your chances may be better if you don't switch to a "light," "ultra-light," or "low-tar" cigarette before you try.

In a newly published study, smokers who traded in their so-called "full-flavor" cigarettes for cigarettes with these labels made more attempts to kick the habit than other smokers, but were almost half as likely to actually do it.

Health officials have long recognized that brands labeled light, ultra-light, mild, and low-tar are no less likely than other cigarettes to cause smoking-related diseases like lung cancer and heart disease; that's because people tend to smoke more of them and inhale more deeply.

But it has not been clear if making the switch to these '"light" brands had an impact on smoking-cessation rates.

As many as 84% of the cigarettes sold in the U.S. have labeling that suggests they are lower in tar and nicotine, according to the latest figures from the Federal Trade Commission.

"We found that switching for any reason to a so-called lighter cigarette appears to be associated with a lower chance of quitting, especially when people switched with the intent of quitting smoking," study researcher Hilary Tindle, MD, PhD, tells WebMD.

Switching to 'Light' Cigarettes
Tindle and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Research on Health Care analyzed data from a 2003 survey of smokers sponsored by the CDC and the National Cancer Institute.

Their sample included roughly 31,000 smokers or former smokers.

The analysis revealed that:

Just over 12,000 of those surveyed (38%) reported switching to a "lighter" cigarette at some time.
Switchers were 58% more likely to have tried to give up smoking in the year prior to completing the survey.
The overall odds of giving up smoking were 46% lower among those who switched than among those who stuck with their original brands.
Smokers who switched to what they perceived as a lighter cigarette for health reasons were the least likely to quit smoking.

Rather than helping smokers who want to kick the habit succeed, switching may undermine their resolve by giving them a false sense that smoking is safe, Tindle says.

"Unfortunately, a substantial proportion of smokers and nonsmokers still believe these cigarettes are healthier even though we have known for many years this is not true," she says.

'Light' Labels on the Way Out
While much of the public may still believe the "lighter" claims, federal officials no longer do.

Last April, Congress passed the most sweeping reform legislation ever to target the tobacco industry, giving the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products.

As a result, words such as light, ultra-light, mild, and low-tar will no longer be permitted on cigarette packaging starting next June.

But Matt Myers, who is president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, tells WebMD the tobacco companies are already working on ways to circumvent the new law.

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11-2-09 2009 Tobacco Vote Record

2009-11-03T12:02:00.000-08:00

The 2009 legislative session of the California Legislature was a busy session for tobacco-related bills. There were bills to create new smokefree areas at hospitals, parks and beaches, bills to restrict the issuance of tobacco retailer licenses, and a spate of tobacco tax bills that were considered and voted on. However, in the end only one tobacco-related bill was signed into law (SB 53, which authorizes the Attorney General to negotiate amendments to the Master Settlement Agreement).

All of this action from a busy 2009 legislative session is captured in the attached 2009 Tobacco Vote Record. There are essentially three parts to this document:

· The first section is a recap of the legislative activity around all of the tobacco-related bills that were introduced in the 2009 session, including the final status of each bill showing which bills the Governor signed and vetoed. This section includes the tobacco control position for each bill which is represented by the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association in California.

· The second section is the actual Tobacco Vote Record. These tables show how every member of the Assembly and Senate voted on all of the tobacco-related bills that received at least one floor vote during this session.

· The final section is a recap of all the activity around bills to increase the state tobacco tax. Ultimately, an increase in the state tobacco tax was not adopted, but there was a lot of activity related to allocating a tobacco tax as part of the budget legislation and related to SB 600, which was sponsored by the major voluntary health organizations. This Q&A provides a synopsis of all the tobacco tax bills introduced in the 2009 legislative session.

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Heated debate: flavored tobacco

2009-10-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Illegalization of fruit, clove cigarettes necessary legislation, measure.

Think back to when you first tried smoking. Statistically, about two thirds of you have. If you were like me, you may have puffed on a flavored cigarette. Fortunately I escaped my teenage rebellion without becoming hooked on cigarettes; however, many of my peers weren't so lucky.

The recent FDA ban on flavored cigarettes will no doubt lessen the number of teens who try smoking. Although the impact won't be overwhelming, legitimate reasoning is behind this measure.

"Flavored cigarettes attract and allure kids into lifetime addiction," said Howard K. Koh of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services assistant secretary for health. "The FDA's ban on these cigarettes will break that cycle for the more than 3,600 young people who start smoking daily."

According to FDA statistics, 90 percent of adults begin smoking as a teen at an average age of 13. The same studies show 17-year-old smokers are three times more likely to use flavored cigarettes than smokers over 25.

If teens can no longer get their hands on flavored cigarettes, their only option will be to try regular ones, which typically involves one of the foulest flavors to ever tingle your taste buds, accompanied by light-headedness, nausea, coughing, throat irritation and (hopefully) no desire to experience it again.

Many teens think flavored cigarettes are safer than their regular counterparts. Quite the contrary -- they both contain more than 4,000 chemicals, 43 known cancer-causing compounds and 400 other toxins. Even smoking an innocent, sweet-smelling clove cigarette provides a means to introduce tar, carbon monoxide, ammonia, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, DDT, nicotine (which gives tobacco its 90 percent addiction rate) and many other damaging chemicals.

Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death, claiming 438,000, or nearly one of every five deaths each year in the U.S., according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined.

Consider this, non-smokers: If a universal health care plan does, in fact, take effect, smokers will be creating an extra burden on the system with your tax dollars helping to pay for their treatment.

Measures like this ban must be taken to lower the number of tobacco users. It's sad, but the general population has proven that it can't do what's right for itself on its own so this is why the government has to step in and regulate the tobacco industry.

Teenagers in particular don't have the maturity or judgment necessary to deal with tobacco.

My intent is not to lecture you on why you shouldn't smoke. It's the 21st century, and everyone knows by now that smoking is bad for your health. I have several friends who smoke, and being in the food service industry, I am surrounded by smokers. It seems fun, rebellious and cool when you're a teenager.

Undoubtedly the FDA ban on flavored cigarettes won't demonstrate a substantial drop in tobacco use, but consider this -- If only 1 percent of the population is deterred from smoking, that's roughly 470,000 people who won't become smokers. That's a pretty solid start.

Government's newest law biased, violation of basic rights

Smokers and freedom-loving citizens are now feeling a squeeze on their precious civil liberties. The ability to make our own choices is being drawn away from the tips of our nicotine-stained fingers.

Sept. 22, 2009, brought the ban on flavored cigarettes. The bill (HR 1256) said, "…a cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice..."

It's an infringement of rights.

I first smoked a cigarette at the age of 13. It wasn't flavored. It was a Marlboro. I didn't know about flavored cigarettes until I was old enough to purchase a pack myself. What got me hooked was the misconception that smoking is "cool".

Reasoning behind the FDA's action is to protect America's youth from of smoking. The candy and fruit flavors are supposedly most appealing to adolescent audiences.

The ban was possible only after President Obama signed legislation earlier this year giving FDA the power to control the manufacturing, sale and marketing of tobacco.

These restrictions are a part of The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Under this act, tobacco companies have to eliminate the terms "low tar," "light" and "mild." Levels of nicotine in cigarettes will be reduced. The product quality will decrease as the prices will soar.

I find it ironic that menthols made it through the ban. Big-money companies like Phillip Morris USA (the nation's largest cigarette producer) don't make flavored cigarettes. They make regular and menthol. This ban doesn't even affect them except to eradicate the specialty and exotic smoke companies from the competition.

"The reason is simple: Menthol cigarettes are nearly 30 percent of the $87 billion U.S. cigarette market," Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson wrote in an article published Sept. 26. "Menthol masks the harshness of smoking with its cooling effect and minty taste. The tobacco lobby and political allies bemoaned the impact of a menthol ban on jobs and government coffers. In 2007, tobacco sales generated $26 billion in state and federal tax revenues."

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Bay Area hooked on hookah

2009-10-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

On a recent Friday night in Palo Alto, three young women sat at a sidewalk table outside an old brick building that once housed Mills the Florist, a shop that has gone up in smoke. In its place is Da Hookah Spot, a lounge where people gather to puff flavored tobacco from a water pipe for hours at a time.

"It's good, it's low key, but you're still out," said Lerna Kazazic, 18, a psychology major at Notre Dame de Namur in Belmont.

Her tablemate, Sara Galatolo, 22, a graduate student at Santa Clara University, agreed.

"It's kind of a European vibe," she said, "like going to cafes and hanging out."

Across the Bay Area and nation in recent years, hookah lounges have become increasingly popular gathering places for college students too young to drink legally, transplanted Middle Easterners looking to indulge in a familiar pastime and even for veterans of the Iraq war, who learned to enjoy hookahs while overseas. The practice is believed to have originated in India and spread to the Middle East hundreds of years ago.

Hookah lounges in the Bay Area tend to cluster around universities such as Stanford, although there are many in San Francisco - from the Tenderloin to the Haight-Ashbury. High-tech workers and engineers such as Mohammad Aldossary, 25, a Stanford graduate student in petroleum engineering from Saudi Arabia, enjoy them, too.

"It's more fun to be in the social atmosphere here," he said at Da Hookah Spot. "I don't smoke cigarettes, but I smoke from a hookah pipe once or twice a week."

The lounges are often classified as tobacco shops, allowing them to get around California's 1998 statewide ban on smoking in bars. Most cities prohibit the sale of food in such establishments. The sale of nonalcoholic beverages, however, is typically allowed as long as they do not make up a significant portion of revenues, and alcohol is prohibited, according to officials at the city attorney's offices in Palo Alto, Hayward and San Francisco.

To smoke, individuals and groups of people sit at a tall pipe with hoses containing removable plastic mouthpieces. The pipe's top contains a bowl of tobacco covered in foil and topped with hot charcoal that heats the tobacco when air is sucked through the hoses. The smoke is cooled through the water, resulting in a smooth inhalation of smoke flavored with a fruity essence, such as mango, watermelon or lemon mint. A bowl can last for 45 minutes and costs from $10 to $22, making it a cost-effective form of entertainment.

But like alcohol and tobacco, hookah smoke carries health risks. Proprietors claim that the tobacco, called shisha, is lower in tar and nicotine than mass-market cigarettes, and that the water filters out toxins, but the American Cancer Society's Web site states that "the water does not filter out many of the toxins. In fact, hookah smoke has been shown to contain concentrations of toxins, such as carbon monoxide, nicotine, tar, and heavy metals, that are as high or higher than are seen with cigarette smoke."

It further warns that users risk lung cancer and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, aspergillus (a lung fungus) and helicobacter (which causes stomach ulcers) from sharing pipes or from the fruity tobacco itself.

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Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/18/LV4P1A3A13.DTL#ixzz0UOdSVsOm

Governor Vetoes Tobacco-Related Bills

2009-10-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

October 11, was the deadline for Governor Schwarzenegger to sign or veto all the bills that were sent to him prior to the end of the 2009 legislative session. Leading up to this deadline, the Governor had issued a threat to veto all the bills that were on his desk unless a legislative deal on water issues was reached. However, the Governor determined that enough progress on water issues was made and decided to “weigh all the bills on their merits.”

There were three tobacco-related bills that had been sent to the Governor and he vetoed all three bills. According to the Governor:

· AB 574 (Prohibiting Smoking at Hospitals; Hill – D, San Mateo) was vetoed because the bill is unnecessary since hospitals can already prohibit smoking in outdoor areas.
· AB 625 (Prohibiting Sale or Distribution of Novelty Lighters; Lieu – D, Torrance) was vetoed because there is no evidence that novelty lighters pose a greater fire risk than normal lighters.
· SB 400 (Authorizing Enforcement Action Against Sales of Electronic Cigarettes; Corbett – D, San Leandro) was vetoed because the Governor did not want to declare e-cigarettes a federally regulated drug when there is pending litigation on the issue.

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FDA bans flavored tobacco, aims to reduce teen smoking

2009-10-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

A federal ban on the sale of most flavored cigarettes, including fruit, candy and clove flavors, went into effect Sept. 22. The ban is the first action taken by the Food and Drug Administration since being granted more power to combat smoking under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed by President Obama in June.

The ban does not include menthol cigarettes, which is the most popular flavored cigarette.

The FDA said in a statement that the ban was put in place in an effort to curb smoking by children and teens.

“These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become smokers,” FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg said in the statement.

A 2004 study showed that 22.8 percent of 17-year-old smokers said they had smoked flavored cigarettes in the past month, while a third of that amount, 6.7 percent, of smokers over the age of 25 reported using them, the FDA said.

“Flavored cigarettes attract and allure kids into a lifetime addiction,” said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh.

“FDA’s ban on these cigarettes will break that cycle for the more than 3,600 young people who start smoking daily.”

The ban covers all flavored tobacco products that meet the definition of a cigarette or any element of cigarettes, such as flavored loose tobacco or rolling papers.

The ban appears vague on what does or doesn’t constitute a cigarette, and the FDA cites a provision of the Federal Cigarette Labeling Advertising Act that defines the term cigarette as, “(A) any roll of tobacco wrapped in paper or in any substance not containing tobacco and (B) any roll of tobacco wrapped in any substance containing tobacco which, because of its appearance, the type of tobacco used in the filler, or its packaging and labeling, is likely to be offered to, or purchased by, consumers as a cigarette,” to determine if a product should be banned.

The FDA has been questioned since the ban was enacted whether or not it applies to cigars and small flavored cigarillos, but has not yet given a definitive answer. Catherine Lorraine, a lawyer for the Center for Tobacco Products, said in a telephone conference that the definition makes it clear that the ban applies to anything consumers perceive as a cigarette.

“We will be looking at products on an individual basis to determine if it meets that aspect of the legislation,” Lorraine said.

Dr. William Bailey, a professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, has done research on smoking cessation and said he feels that the ban is a step in the right direction, though it is a very small step. Excluding menthol cigarettes from the ban makes it an even smaller step, Bailey said, but every effort to prevent children and teens from smoking is important.

Bailey said he agrees that flavored cigarettes would be more attractive to children, and he compared it to the way kids crowd around an ice cream truck.
“Kids just love sweet stuff,” Bailey said in an e-mail.

Blum said mentholated cigarettes have existed for 80 years and make up close to 30 percent of all cigarette sales. They are especially popular with Hispanic and black consumers, who have been targeted by tobacco companies, Blum said.

Blum said menthol cigarettes were not included in the ban because of a deal Philip Morris cut with the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. By breaking ranks with other tobacco companies and supporting the FDA in this ban, Marlboro, the cigarette maker with 50 percent of the U.S. market, was able to gain the support of the well-funded lobbyist group, Blum said.

“In other words, the campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and Philip Morris can be said to have sold out African-American and Hispanic consumers for the sake of getting a largely symbolic bill passed,” Blum said.

At this point, Blum said any attempts to ban menthol cigarettes would lead to years of court battles, as any research that would back up a ban on menthol cigarettes would also lead to a ban on all cigarettes, which is a move the FDA is not authorized to make.

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9-30-09 Class Challenges E-Cigarette's Safety Claim

2009-09-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO (CN) - Smoking Everywhere, which makes electronic cigarettes that produce steam instead of smoke, misleads the public by claiming its product is not harmful though it has tested positive for human carcinogens and a poison found in antifreeze, a Sacramento man claims in a federal class action.

E-Cigarettes are battery-operated devices that look like cigarettes and have cartridges filled with nicotine, flavors and other chemicals. They are sold online and at kiosks in shopping malls around the United States.

Smoking Everywhere claims its product has been "toxicologically tested and it contains no known ingredients that are considered cancer-causing agents," according to the complaint. It claims the cigarettes are infused with vitamins A, B, and C, and are actually a healthy dietary supplement, the complaint states.

But plaintiff Bryn Garrett says the e-cigarettes have tested positive for human carcinogens, and that at least one cartridge was found to contain diethylene glycol, "a poison found in antifreeze that has been linked hundreds of deaths worldwide from tainted toothpaste and cough syrup."

When confronted with an FDA finding that e-cigarettes are unsafe, Elicko Taieb, CEO of Smoking Everywhere, said he is "pretty sure" the product is safe, though "we are not 100 percent sure of the side effects yet," according to the complaint.

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Even if You've Stopped Smoking Get a Screening Chest X-ray

2009-09-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

Attention Ex-Smokers: Get a chest X-ray every two years. Remind your doctor that you used to be a smoker, even if it's been 10, 20, 30 years since your last cigarette.

Screening Chest X-ray Detects Early-stage Lung Cancers At High Rates, Study Results Show.

ScienceDaily — Almost half of lung cancers detected by a chest x-ray were early-stage cancers, according to baseline results of a large, randomized clinical trial that is testing the efficacy of a chest x-ray as a screening test for lung cancer. The study results are published in the December 21 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Lung cancer causes one million deaths worldwide every year. When patients begin to experience symptoms of lung cancer, the cancers are often advanced and treatment is rarely successful; 90% of newly diagnosed lung cancer patients die within 2 years of diagnosis.

In 1992, The National Cancer Institute launched the still-ongoing Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial to evaluate screening tests for each of the four cancers. The PLCO Cancer Screening Trial is the largest trial ever conducted in the United States. The 155,000 men and women enrolled in the study were asked about past and present smoking habits, medical history of themselves and their families, and personal characteristics. For the lung cancer portion of the trial, participants were randomly assigned to a control group or to a screening group that received a single-view, posterior-anterior chest x-ray.

According to the baseline results of the 77,465 patients in the screening group, reported by Martin M. Oken, M.D., of the Hubert H. Humphrey Cancer Center in Robbinsdale, Minn., and colleagues from the PLCO Project Team, 5991 (8.9%) participants had a test result that was suspicious for cancer, and after further follow-up and medical tests, 126 participants were diagnosed with lung cancer. Forty-four percent of the cancers found were diagnosed as stage I cancers. Chest x-ray detected 6.3 lung cancers per 1000 current smokers, 4.9 lung cancers per 1000 former smokers who had smoked in the past 15 years, 1.1 lung cancers per 1000 former smokers who had not smoked within the past 15 years, and 0.4 lung cancers per 1000 never-smokers. Chest x-ray found cancer at a higher rate in men than in women.

"The data suggest a high rate of early detection and possibly important differences between screening for lung cancer in women and in men," write the authors. "The answer to the important question of reduction in lung cancer mortality must await analysis of the two study arms as these data mature."

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9-23-2009 Teens Who Eat Infrequent Family Dinners Likelier to Drink, Smoke

2009-09-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

Compared to teens who have frequent family dinners, those who have infrequent family dinners are twice as likely to use tobacco; more than one and a half times likelier to use alcohol; and twice as likely to try drugs in the future, according to The Importance of Family Dinners V, a new report by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

The CASA report reveals that compared to teens who have frequent family dinners without distractions at the table (talking or texting on a cell phone, using a Blackberry, laptop or Game Boy), those who have infrequent family dinners and say there are distractions at the table are three times likelier to use marijuana and tobacco, and two and a half times likelier use alcohol.

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9-15-09 Clove cigarettes being pulled from store shelves

2009-09-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

In less than a week, clove cigarettes and all other flavored tobacco will be pulled from the shelves, substantiating the Food and Drug Administration's first directive controlling the sale of tobacco products.

On June 22, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, effectively giving the FDA wide ranging authority to regulate tobacco.

Flavored tobacco was the first targeted because critics say artificial additives like cherry, grape, chocolate, and spiced cigarettes such as cloves, appeal to youths and lays the groundwork for a smoking addiction. The law only applies to rolled cigarettes, and menthols were spared in this particular prohibition.

In other words, mint is out, but menthols are acceptable. According to Lott, Nat Sherman's Hint of Mint packaging will soon read "menthol," but it's contents will be unaffected.

As for cloves, Lott said, "there is a contingent of people who buy these cigarettes," adding that flavored tobacco constitutes about 15 percent of the cigarettes sold at Newsbeat.

Kretek International Inc., which imports Djarum-brand cloves from Indonesia, holds a 97 percent U.S. market share with its line of Djarum clove cigarettes, a staple of Indonesian smoking culture.

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The FDA Wants Your Input on the new FDA Tobacco Law by Sept 29th

2009-09-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is asking for public comments on the new FDA tobacco law. Please help this important public input phase by taking a few minutes to submit your own comments to the FDA directly by September 29th.

What will the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act do?
Read an overview of the FDA Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

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9-14-09 Federal Court Backs S.F. Ban on Drugstore Cigarette Sales

2009-09-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Philip Morris and cleared the way for the city of San Francisco to enforce a law banning cigarette sales in pharmacies, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sept. 10.

The cigarette maker opposed the law on free speech grounds, saying the ordinance -- the first of its kind in the U.S. -- infringed on its rights to advertise to drugstore customers. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law "limits where cigarettes may be sold; it doesn't prevent (Philip Morris) from advertising."

A separate lawsuit filed by Walgreens also opposes the law, saying it discriminates against drugstores by allowing cigarette sales at other types of businesses that have pharmacies, such as retailers like Wal-Mart and supermarkets.

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9-5-2009 How could Google Wave change Google Health?

2009-09-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

Google Wave arrives on September 30th. On that day, Google will start sending out 100,000 invites to non-developers to its much-anticipated real-time communication platform.

It’s not even released and it’s generating more hype than almost any other web product in recent memory. The reason stems from its game-changing features and their potential applications on business, education, customer service, email, social networking, and more.

From the same engineers that designed Google Maps comes an online collaboration tool called Google Wave that attempts to answer the question: What would email look like if it was invented today, instead of some 40 years ago before the Internet even existed? Some have called Google’s answer to that question a Twitter-killer, but given the application’s status as an open-source project, it could have far greater implications.

We wonder if Google Wave will accelerate development of the Google Health PHR, which has yet to become fully functional on mobile phones, even though Google has stated their intent to develop its mobile functionality more fully.

First, a brief explanation of what Google Wave looks like today, according to Google: “In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content - it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.”

We’re happy to hear Google Wave will come in two mobile flavors to start — Android and iPhone. But what is perhaps most exciting about Google Wave is that the company has announced the product well before it is ready for use by the general public. The reason? Google wants to let developers write applications and extensions to Wave for their own services, sites and blogs. It’s an open-source project right now with more than 4,900 developers potentially working on it.

Google Health already has an API available for developers. Google Wave could bring real-time collaboration between physicians and patients to the Google Health platform. Imagine being able to easily insert comments into every line of information in your medical health records. Google Wave could make it much easier for physicians to upload information into Google Health, too. If nothing else, the new application looks to greatly improve the user experience for Google Health users, should developers, whether inside the Googleplex or one of those 4,900 external developers with new Google Wave accounts, take advantage of the opportunity to make Google Health more collaborative.

How could Google Wave change Google Health? How could it change the way physicians collaborate with each other? With patients?

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Some Women Giving HypnoBirthing a Try

2009-09-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

For many women, pregnancy and childbirth can be a struggle. While conventional medicine can offer hope through infertility treatments, some women are using alternative methods to get pregnant and deliver their babies.
Some local mothers are saying forget the drugs. Instead, take the pain and fear out of giving birth with hypnosis. This is what Tasha Schurgin believes helped her through 36 hours of labor. It's called HypnoBirthing, a type of hypnosis that teaches pregnant women how to get past the pain.
"It just gave me the confidence to go through the process without using any drugs or anything. I just wanted a natural, healthy pregnancy and delivery," said Schurgin.
"When you're looking at natural childbirth, it's just so much better for mom and baby, and if you have a calm and relaxed mother throughout the entire pregnancy, you are actually growing a calm and relaxed baby," said hypnotherapist Pauline Rzepecki.
Rzepecki teaches moms to be to follow the natural instinct that comes with childbirth. Using deep relaxation, visualization and self hypnosis, she says she takes the fear out of labor.
Juanelle Degiulio tried fertility treatments for years, but believes it's hypnotherapy that helped her get pregnant.
"I went through, I think it was four, four accelerated sessions with Pauline, and then here we are with twins and we're very excited," Degiulio said.
"But switching the affirmations that they may be saying to themselves, 'I'll never get pregnant', to 'I do have a fertile body'," Rzepecki said.
There's no scientific proof that hypnotherapy treats infertility, but Beaumont fertility specialist Dr. William Keye says it can't hurt.
"Hypnosis can change body chemistry, body's hormones, the body's immune response, so it wouldn't be surprising that in some situations that hypnosis could be of some value," Keye said.
Schurgin says she looks at her baby girl and needs no other proof to know that HypnoBirthing does work. "It was definitely a long process, but it was well worth it," she said.

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VA Official Will Head FDA's Tobacco Division - The Wall Street Journal

2009-08-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

Jared A. Favole

The Food and Drug Administration tapped a Veterans Affairs official with a long history of public-health experience to head the agency's new tobacco division.

Lawrence Deyton was the chief public-health officer at the VA and initiated smoking-cessation programs that lowered smoking rates among veterans. He has served in the National Institutes of Health, started a community-based AIDS service organization in Washington, D.C., and was a legislative aide with the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in the 1970s.

His experience at building public-health initiatives should come in handy as the FDA grapples with how to regulate the deep-pocketed tobacco industry. The FDA received authority in June to regulate the industry after years of contentious debate in Congress, the public-health arena and among tobacco firms.

Dr. Deyton will lead a division that is charged with restricting tobacco advertising and promotions, collecting user fees from tobacco companies and stopping the illegal sales of cigarettes and other products to children.

He said in a statement he was eager for what he sees as a "tremendous opportunity" to "make progress in combating tobacco use -- the leading cause of preventable death in the United States."

His appointment won praise from public-health advocates. Dr. Deyton is "a highly respected and experienced public health leader," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, adding, he has a "longstanding appreciation of the importance of tobacco."

Though the law giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco is specific, there is some room for discretion -- and that is where Dr. Deyton may have the biggest effect. In anticipation of FDA oversight, large tobacco companies such as Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris and Reynolds American Inc. have been in recent years aggressively developing smokeless-tobacco products that are dissolvable in the mouth.

Companies want to be able to market the products as being less risky than traditional tobacco products. The new tobacco law says they can't, unless they prove so. Dr. Deyton will likely be a key player in determining what benchmarks companies have to reach to show their products are less risky.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

Secondhand Smoke Exposure High for Car Occupants

2009-08-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

Driving in a car with a smoker can expose you to secondhand-smoke levels as high or higher as those in a smoke-filled bar, and even rolling down the window or cranking up the AC doesn't provide full protection, according to researchers.

Reuters
reported Aug. 25 that researchers who measured nicotine levels with sensors installed on the front passenger-seat headrest and the rear seat found that all passengers are exposed to high-levels of secondhand smoke when they ride with a smoker.

Nicotine levels in nonsmokers' cars were undetectable, but in smokers' cars they averaged 9.6 micrograms per cubic meter, higher than the levels typically detected in public or private spaces where smoking is permitted. "This is because the car is a very small place," said researcher Ana Navas-Acien of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Nicotine concentrations in cars doubled for every cigarette smoked, the researchers found.

The study was published online in the journal Tobacco Control

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Legislative Week in Review (August 17-21)

2009-08-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

The California Legislature reconvened on Monday, August 17 after the legislature’s summer recess. There are now only three weeks left in the 2009 legislative session and all bills must be passed by both the Assembly and the Senate and sent to the Governor by September 11. During this final month of the legislative session, the Center will provide a weekly Legislative Week in Review. For more frequent updates, visit the Center’s Bill Tracker, which is updated daily as legislative activity occurs.

There are still seven tobacco-related bills that continue to move forward in the legislative process. During the summer recess, one tobacco-related bill was signed into law. On August 5, the Governor signed SB 53: Authorizing the Attorney General to Negotiate Amendments to the Master Settlement Agreement (DeSaulnier – D, Concord). Below is a summary of the legislative activity that occurred on the remaining tobacco-related bills during the week of August 17-21 and the next step for each bill.

AB 574: Prohibiting Smoking at Hospitals (Hill – D, San Mateo)
Legislative Activity: No activity this week.
Next Step: AB 574 has been sent to the Senate floor and is awaiting a vote by the full Senate.

AB 625: Prohibiting Sale or Distribution of Novelty Lighters (Lieu – D, Torrance)
Legislative Activity: No activity this week.
Next Step: AB 625 has been sent to the Senate floor and is awaiting a vote by the full Senate.

SB 4: Prohibiting Smoking in State Parks and State Beaches (Oropeza – D, Long Beach)
Legislative Activity: The Assembly Appropriations Committee passed SB 4 by a vote of 11-6 on August 19.
Next Step: SB 4 has been sent to the Assembly floor where it will receive a vote by the full Assembly.

SB 364: Prohibiting Cancer Center Leadership from also Holding a Leadership Position for a Tobacco Company (Florez – D, Shafter)
Legislative Activity: SB 364 was amended on August 20. The language in the bill that prohibits an individual in a leadership position at a comprehensive cancer center from serving in a leadership position at a company that manufactures or sells tobacco products, a company that has violated controlled substances laws, or a biopharmaceutical company was amended to eliminate the prohibition related to biopharmaceutical companies.
Next Step: A hearing before the Assembly Appropriations Committee has been scheduled for August 27.

SB 400: Including Electronic Cigarettes in the Definition of a Tobacco Product (Corbett – D, San Leandro)
Legislative Activity: The Assembly Appropriations Committee passed SB 400 by a vote of 17-0 on August 19.
Next Step: SB 400 has been sent to the Assembly floor where it will receive a vote by the full Assembly.

SB 600: Increasing the State Tobacco Tax (Padilla – D, San Fernando Valley)
Legislative Activity: No activity this week.
Next Step: SB 600 is being held in the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee suspense file and awaiting a suspense file hearing by the committee.

SJR 8: Requesting the FDA to Prohibit Sales of Electronic Cigarettes until Proven Safe (Corbett – D, San Leandro)
Legislative Activity: No activity this week.
Next Step: SJR 8 has been sent to the Assembly and is waiting to be referred to a committee.

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