The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke


Book Description

This Surgeon General's report returns to the topic of the health effects of involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke. The last comprehensive review of this evidence by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) was in the 1986 Surgeon General's report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking, published 20 years ago this year. This new report updates the evidence of the harmful effects of involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke. This large body of research findings is captured in an accompanying dynamic database that profiles key epidemiologic findings, and allows the evidence on health effects of exposure to tobacco smoke to be synthesized and updated (following the format of the 2004 report, The Health Consequences of Smoking). The database enables users to explore the data and studies supporting the conclusions in the report. The database is available on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco.







The Politics of Public Health in the United States


Book Description

Our public health system is primarily concerned with the promotion of health and the prevention of disease. But while everyone may agree with these goals in principle, in practice public health is a highly contentious policy arena. that is inevitably entangled with sensitive issues ranging from occupational safety and environmental hazards to health education, immunization, and treatment of addiction and sexually transmitted disease. Today however, concern for protecting the population against bio-terrorism and new epidemics such as SARS is tipping the balance back toward increased support for public health. This book focuses on the politics, policies, and methodologies of public health and the twenty-first century challenges to the public health system of the United States. It explores the system's relatively weak position in the American political culture, medical establishment, and legal system; scientific and privacy issues in public health; and the challenges posed by ecological risk and the looming threat of bio-terrorist attack. Each chapter includes study questions. The volume also includes a chronology of major laws and events in public health policy along with an extensive bibliography.




Tobacco


Book Description

Tobacco addresses the many interrelated controversies surrounding the historical and current use of tobacco and presents a clear, objective, and thorough treatment of this contentious public health and legal issue. The American Indians valued tobacco as a wonder drug. When Rodrigo de Jerez, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his maiden voyage of 1492, returned to Spain with tobacco, he was accused of associating with Satan and imprisoned when his compatriots saw smoke coming out of his nose. This book covers everything from the history of tobacco to health and social issues such as targeting children. Biographical sketches of key personalities associated with tobacco range from Thomas Edison, who refused to hire anybody who smoked cigarettes, to Jean Nicot, the French Ambassador to Portugal in the mid-1500s, from whose name the word nicotine is derived. This title takes the reader through the myriad of issues that make up the tobacco debate in a clear and unbiased way.




The Cigarette Papers


Book Description

These documents provide a shocking inside account of the activities of one tobacco company, Brown & Williamson, and its multinational parent, British American Tobacco, over more than thirty years.




Environmental Tobacco Smoke


Book Description




Human and Ecological Risk Assessment


Book Description

Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: Theory and Practice assembles the expertise of more than fifty authorities from fifteen different fields, forming a comprehensive reference and textbook on risk assessment. Containing two dozen case studies of environmental or human health risk assessments, the text not only presents the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline, but also serves as a complete handbook and "how-to" guide for individuals conducting or interpreting risk assessments. In addition, more than 4,000 published papers and books in the field are cited. Editor Dennis Paustenbach has assembled chapters that present the most current methods for conducting hazard identification, dose-response and exposure assessment, and risk characterization components for risk assessments of any chemical hazard to humans or wildlife (fish, birds, and terrestrials). Topics addressed include hazards posed by: Air emissions Radiological hazards Contaminated soil and foods Agricultural hazards Occupational hazards Consumer products and water Hazardous waste sites Contaminated air and water The bringing together of so many of the world's authorities on these topics, plus the comprehensive nature of the text, promises to make Human and Ecological Risk Assessment the text against which others will be measured in the coming years.




Baby Boomer Health Dynamics


Book Description

Are the baby boomers in Canada more or less healthy than previous generations? What are the implications of this for the national health care system? Baby Boomer Health Dynamic responds to the growing interest in the generation that makes up over one-third of the Canadian population - the largest segment of society - with the leading edge reaching their sixty-fifth birthday in 2011 and eighty-five by 2031. Focusing on four health behaviours that have been proven to be major risk factors for disease: smoking, unhealthy exercise, obesity, and heavy drinking - Andrew V. Wister researches the long-term implications of several key lifestyle-health conundrums, most notably the paradoxical relationship in the concurrent trends over the last two decades of increased exercise levels and a significant rise in obesity. This invariably leads to questions about the eating habits of North Americans, and in particular, the quantity and quality of fast-food and convenience-food consumption. Recent public declarations by a number of health organizations and institutes that we are experiencing an obesity crisis, and moreover, that obesity is the 'new tobacco' makes Baby Boomer Health Dynamics both timely and topical.




Cigarettes


Book Description

In March 2011, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental activist group, released a questionable report alleging that chemical exposures throughout the country have led to numerous "disease clusters." The group called for far-reaching reforms that would place huge financial burdens on chemical manufacturers and American taxpayers. Accelerated job loss and restrictions or bans on safe and usefulproducts would be the consequences of the misguided concern generated by this (and similar) scientifically flawed warnings. In response, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), basing our analysis on well established principles of scientific investigation, critically evaluated the NRDC's purported disease clusters and assessed the depth of the evidence-based support for these claims. This publication is a case-by-case investigation of each of the NRDC's claims. We explain why, with few exceptions, their allegationshave no scientific basis and fly in the face of the conclusions reached by objective governmental public health agencies.