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USA Today
24-07-2025
- Health
- USA Today
Have you noticed smoking is making a comeback? I hate that. I love that.
I know smoking is bad for my health. We all know that. So why is it making a comeback? The sight of snuffed cigarette butts in an ashtray might feel jarringly anachronistic these days, given successful efforts to curtail the smelly act for decades. Nonetheless, we're edging toward a resurgence, at least in popular culture, of the classic combustion of an old-school cigarette, even if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assures us rates aren't yet increasing. Unfortunately, I've fallen into the quiet resurgence. I'm a 46-year-old diabetic who tries to be healthy, yet after quitting 20 years ago, I find myself back in the alley occasionally (always shamefully) puffing as I hold pleasure and consequence in the same breath. My friends call it nostalgia. I think it's deeper – a defiant exhale of the angst and authenticity I crave in an uncertain world. Smoking was eradicated. Now it's creeping back into the mainstream. The historical canon of smoking is well-documented from early 20th century glamour and association with sophistication, rebellion and artistic freedom – see flappers, film noir, World War II soldiers, the Beat Generation, the Marlboro Man and Bob Dylan. I grew up in the haze of the 1990s when smoking wasn't just a habit, it was a personality – raw and rebellious – butts smeared with Courtney Love's red lipstick, the thrift-store fantasy of "Reality Bites," the sultry detachment of Mia Wallace in "Pulp Fiction." But smoking fell out of favor over the past several decades, transforming the cigarette from an emblem of cool into a symbol of a bygone era, fraught with undeniable health consequences. Increased spending on public health campaigns successfully shifted public perception in the 1990s and early 2000s as tobacco control media campaigns vilified the act. Opinion: Is it Alzheimer's or am I just getting old? Here's how to find an answer. In 1998, federal law prohibited paid smoking product placement on TV and in the movies, and subsequent smoking bans made it difficult to light up where secondhand smoke might blow. Taxes made cigarettes pricey, and in 2007, the Motion Picture Association of America began considering cigarette use as a factor in film ratings. Meanwhile, I managed to quit smoking while navigating my career and a second marriage, as anti-smoking campaigns gained traction and thankfully weakened tobacco's power. Decades later, the old-school act of combusting nicotine is back in the zeitgeist. The New York Times recently reported on the aesthetic resurgence of smoking, and even the Republican Party brought the act back to the U.S. Capitol in 2023. Eight in 10 of the 2025 Oscar best picture nominees featured tobacco imagery. In the new Netflix show 'Too Much,' the character Felix practically begs you to tell him smoking isn't cool, as he puffs between his nail-polished fingers and we swoon. Mistrust of institutions and our angst are why smoking is back This cultural phenomenon unfolds against a backdrop of deep and precipitous institutional distrust in the U.S. government and a decline in trust across various sectors from 2021 to 2024, including pharmacies, hospitals, social service agencies, fire departments, universities, police departments and public health departments. Concurrent to these visual cues of lighting up, global anti-smoking efforts are quietly being defunded in favor of even bigger world problems. Without dedicated efforts to keep smokers focused on the undeniable health consequences, are we soon to face an even bigger health crisis? Recent legislation will surely compromise health care for 17 million Americans in the near term. Opinion: I'm taking a stand against jacked-up airline fees by taking the middle seat This rebirth points to a deeper longing for control. This stance was well-spun by Kurt Vonnegut when he said, 'The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.' In this chosen ritual, however infrequent, I signal a visceral middle finger to ambient anxieties and constant demands for optimization. I scroll my phone anxiously as I'm bombarded by news that's not immediately credible, often a polarized take on fleeting democratic norms. Smoking is terrible for my health. But it helps feed my need to rebel. Smoking offers a palpable pause, a singular moment of physical presence in an existence mediated by the ever-present pressure of political machinations. And when those threats feel ambient and involuntary, smoking is a sensory language all its own, where the health consequences almost fade to black (like my lungs) as I relish each tantalizing feature of personal agency. If I asked my therapist why I returned to a pack of Kool 100 Milds as a way to subconsciously control the world's chaos, she'd likely say it's like thumb sucking, a childish habit that I need to eradicate – immediately. I can't disagree. Smoking is awful for my health. Still, the choice to engage with a known threat paradoxically feels safer than the chaos beyond my control, where fundamental freedoms, like the right to bodily autonomy, are increasingly debated and denied. It speaks to my desire for imperfection, a reclaiming of agency over my body, and deliberate choices in defiance of a societal narrative that often conflates moral virtue with absolute health. For those, like me, who sometimes justify with a 'one or two won't kill me,' it's important to remember all the reasons we quit in the first place. In addition to the risk of lung cancer or worse, I remind myself of the absurdity of Botoxing my forehead wrinkles and injecting Ozempic if I'm willing to suck on a cancer stick. I put saccharine, bubble-gum flavored vapes and nicotine pouches in this category, too – they're all really bad for our health. There's no dispute on that, whether or not we fully demonize smoking. And maybe the fact that we all know how bad it is is the problem. Smoking is Chapter 1 of the original anti-authority playbook, creeping back into consciousness the minute we look away. Akin to slipping on my classic black leather jacket, it will never truly go out of style. Society, it seems, once again sanctions both as my potent symbols of defiance in a world rife with involuntary consequences. Andrea Javor is a freelance writer and marketing executive based in Chicago. She spends her free time playing poker and working on her memoir. Connect with her on Instagram: @AndreaEJavor
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Revealed: How Big Tobacco is funding trials to treat diseases caused by smoking
When multibillion-pound global corporations invest huge sums in medical companies to develop new treatments for serious illnesses such as lung cancer, heart disease, asthma and severe pain, it's usually widely welcomed. But a massive new wave of investment is having the opposite effect on medical experts and health campaigners. Why? Because the cash is coming from tobacco companies – the same businesses that helped to fuel the growth of some of these deadly illnesses in the first place through the sale of cigarettes. Big Tobacco's 'invasion' of medicine is spearheaded by Philip Morris International (PMI), the Swiss-based giant that sells around a quarter of all the world's cigarettes – 613billion of them in 2023, including the world's biggest-selling brand: Marlboro. Over the past decade, PMI has invested heavily in companies developing treatments for heart attacks, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – a condition caused by damage to the lungs, often by smoking, which can leave those affected struggling to breathe. A tragic irony is that Eric Lawson, who portrayed the rugged Marlboro man in cigarette ads during the late 1970s and had smoked since the age of 14, died from COPD aged 72. Tobacco remains the biggest cause of lung disease in the UK and smoking-related illness costs the NHS £2.5billion a year. Other cigarette companies are also developing drug therapies for conditions that their products can cause (more on those later). Laura Williamson, policy manager at the charity Asthma + Lung UK, told Good Health: 'There is a huge issue about tobacco companies taking two bites of the cherry here. They must not be able to profit from the illnesses they create. 'It is the tobacco companies that cause these diseases and the idea that they would further profit from making treatments for these conditions is utterly to be condemned. 'They are absolutely not trying to help people. If they did, then they would not peddle cigarettes, because that would truly help people in the first place by not harming their health.' In a similar vein, the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association Respiratory Committee – a national organisation for pharmacists and healthcare professionals specialising in lung health – said last November it was 'deeply disturbing and perverse' that PMI should 'seek to profit from the treatment of smoking-related lung diseases that their products cause'. Health campaigners in science and academia are taking action – and late last year appeared to have won a crucial victory over medical-inhaler company Vectura, which PMI bought in 2021. Under PMI's ownership Vectura focused on developing inhalable drugs to treat asthma and COPD – a market forecast to be worth £50billion in the next decade and one that promises huge profits. PMI's takeover was condemned by the British Thoracic Society, the European Respiratory Society and the COPD Foundation. Vectura was also effectively barred from holding joint ventures with academics by universities that prohibit collaboration with the tobacco industry. Vectura employees were also prohibited from publishing their research studies in a range of scientific journals and had to withdraw from involvement in scientific conferences, again because of stipulations that prevented collaboration with the industry. As a consequence, last September PMI sold Vectura Group for £150million to the electronics firm Molex Asia Holdings – just three years after buying it for more than £1billion, due to what PMI called an 'unwarranted' backlash from scientists and health leaders. However, Good Health's investigation shows PMI has not actually left the sector or halted development of asthma inhalers. A PMI spokesman told Good Health that it remains 'committed to driving innovation in this space over the long term', adding that it did not sell the whole of Vectura but only one part of it. 'The remaining units of Vectura Fertin Pharma will continue to operate as a separate company under PMI's ownership with new branding', the spokesman said, adding the focus will be on inhaled prescription products for therapy areas that include heart attacks and strokes, and pain. In 2021, PMI acquired another pharmaceutical company, called OtiTopic, which produces respiratory inhalers. Notably, it was developing an inhalable treatment for heart attacks, called Asprihale, which delivers a dry powder version of aspirin into the body to try to dissolve clots in the coronary arteries. This is 'still in development' PMI told Good Health. Smoking is a major risk factor for heart disease. This reflects a wider move by the tobaccco industry into other areas of health. For example, Japan Tobacco International (JTI), which sells Camel and Silk Cut cigarettes in Europe, has a pharmaceutical branch that produces treatments for lung cancer and heart disease, as well as for two skin conditions known to be affected by smoking – psoriasis and dermatitis. And British American Tobacco (BAT), which makes Rothmans cigarettes, is investing in companies that are developing vaccines for respiratory conditions such as Covid-19. BAT also owns, through its corporate venture capital arm BtomorrowVentures, up to a quarter of the Danish company PlatoScience, which is developing treatments for mental health illnesses such as depression. Meanwhile, the US tobacco corporation Altria Group, which owns Benson & Hedges, is partnered with a company working on more efficient ways to deliver the active drugs found in 'skinny-jabs' Ozempic and Wegovy. The same firm, according to researchers at the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) at the University of Bath, also has connections with a Canadian company called Lexaria Bioscience, relating to a drug-delivery technology called DehydraTECH. Lexaria's website says that DehydraTECH, which allows drugs to be dehydrated and mixed with other ingredients such as foods, has been shown in early clinical testing to deliver the weight-reducing drug semaglutide (found in Wegovy) faster and more efficiently than the current system of injections. Health campaigners are not only appalled by the idea that cigarette-makers may profit from selling treatments for the serious illnesses linked to smoking products, they also claim that when tobacco companies are allowed into reputable scientific spaces such as journals, conferences and research facilities, they use this as an opportunity to minimise or deny the harms their products cause. Laura Williamson warns: 'When the tobacco industry is involved with a pharmaceutical company it makes it hard to trust the research. 'There is significant evidence that the industry promotes publication of research to reduce the negative impact of smoking that independent medical data shows is happening.' A study of tobacco company tactics, published in 2023 in the journal Tobacco Control, concluded: 'Research shows that in the past tobacco companies invested large sums of money in funding and disseminating research which claimed tobacco does not cause cancer, intentionally concealed the potential toxicity of their products as well as the addictive nature of nicotine, and created an international programme of scientific consultants to shape public opinion on second-hand smoke.' The researchers, from the TCRG, added: 'The industry has for decades attempted to create and maintain an image of scientific credibility, and its use of science to obscure the harms caused by its products and avoid unfavourable regulation is well documented. 'It is therefore concerning to see tobacco companies attending scientific events and having the opportunity to share and promote their messages.' Nicholas Hopkinson, a professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, and chairman of the anti-smoking charity Action on Smoking and Health, says Big Tobacco should be kept well away from the pharmaceutical industry. 'The tobacco industry makes huge profits while killing millions of people every year,' he told Good Health. 'The idea that these companies should be allowed to take this blood money and launder their reputation by diversifying into healthcare is simply obscene.' The tobacco companies argue that they are doing important work to salve smoking-related disease, by moving their activities away from cigarettes and towards 'safer' alternatives. A PMI spokesman told Good Health: 'As of October 2024, we achieved 38 per cent of total net revenues from smoke-free alternatives, including heated tobacco and nicotine pouches. 'Our ambition is for more than two thirds of the company's total net revenues to come from smoke-free products by 2030.' A spokesman for BAT said: 'We want to accelerate our company's transformation and help build a smokeless world. 'As we continue to transform, we are exploring long-term opportunities beyond nicotine, making investments in a range of companies including those in the tech, science and wellbeing sectors.' A JTI spokesman told Good Health: 'The JTI Group has three business segments which operate completely independently from one another. 'There is a pharmaceutical business based in Tokyo, a food business also in Tokyo, and a tobacco busines headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.' Altria has not responded to Good Health's requests for comment. A spokesman for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry declined to comment on the incursion of tobacco giants into the medicines sector.
Calgary Herald
08-05-2025
- Automotive
- Calgary Herald
Koehl: Free us from the danger of pickup trucks
Freedom. It's a word we hear often, whether in economics, pandemics or political campaigns. There's the freedom of the markets, the so-called 'Freedom Convoy,' and a country that is promoted as free and strong. Freedom is also central to the successful marketing of pickup trucks, products that are proliferating on our roads. The danger that these vehicles pose to the lives of pedestrians is rarely mentioned. Article content Article content Article content The surging number of pickups is no surprise, given the billions of dollars that auto-makers invest to convince buyers that they're not only buying an oversized vehicle but being liberated from roads to roam off-road trails, even to scale mountains. In fact, buyers get much more. Along with freedom, upon them are magically bestowed qualities of adventure-seeking, rugged independence and machismo. Sure, it's just marketing hype, but hearing it feels so good that it's easy to ignore the real-world consequences. Article content Article content Beyond the marketing fantasies, a heavy burden is foisted upon other road users: a new peril to their lives. While the pickup driver is safely encased in the cab of a military-sized vehicle, pedestrians are almost 3.5 times more likely to be killed when struck by a pickup compared to a traditional sedan. Children fare even worse: as pedestrians, they are seven times more likely to die in a crash involving a pickup. By 2020, Ontario's Ministry of Transportation was already reporting that 61 per cent of pedestrian deaths annually were caused by pickups and SUVs, even though they represented only 41 per cent of road vehicles. Article content Article content Vehicle design is the problem. For every 10-cm increase in the height of a vehicle's front-end, there is a 22 per cent increase in the risk of death to pedestrians in a crash. Article content Article content The pickup is about identity, not utility. Pickups have long been used for commerce, but their inflated size and their prevalence as passenger vehicles is reasonably new. While pickups are marketed for their capacity to conquer lunar landscapes, they're far more likely to be seen at a Tim Hortons drive-through. In most pickups, the cup-holder gets more use than the cargo hold. Article content Today's adventure-seeking pickup driver is a marketing creation akin to yesterday's Marlboro Man. But rugged independence didn't free the smoker from the risk of lung cancer, nor from reliance on public health care. Indeed, for all the 'you are free, strong, and independent' bravado sold by the auto makers today, the same companies needed a colossal public bailout in 2009 to survive. Article content Pickup drivers themselves are burdened with higher purchase and operating costs while almost always relying on publicly financed roads, not dusty or muddy trails. Meanwhile, the cost to pedestrians of this vehicle 'bloat' is paid in lives. And the general public suffers higher greenhouse gas emissions, greater demand on limited parking space and faster road deterioration.
Ottawa Citizen
08-05-2025
- Automotive
- Ottawa Citizen
Koehl: Free us from the danger of pickup trucks
Freedom. It's a word we hear often, whether in economics, pandemics or political campaigns. There's the freedom of the markets, the so-called 'Freedom Convoy,' and a country that is promoted as free and strong. Freedom is also central to the successful marketing of pickup trucks, products that are proliferating on our roads. The danger that these vehicles pose to the lives of pedestrians is rarely mentioned. Article content Article content Article content The surging number of pickups is no surprise, given the billions of dollars that auto-makers invest to convince buyers that they're not only buying an oversized vehicle but being liberated from roads to roam off-road trails, even to scale mountains. In fact, buyers get much more. Along with freedom, upon them are magically bestowed qualities of adventure-seeking, rugged independence and machismo. Sure, it's just marketing hype, but hearing it feels so good that it's easy to ignore the real-world consequences. Article content Beyond the marketing fantasies, a heavy burden is foisted upon other road users: a new peril to their lives. While the pickup driver is safely encased in the cab of a military-sized vehicle, pedestrians are almost 3.5 times more likely to be killed when struck by a pickup compared to a traditional sedan. Children fare even worse: as pedestrians, they are seven times more likely to die in a crash involving a pickup. By 2020, Ontario's Ministry of Transportation was already reporting that 61 per cent of pedestrian deaths annually were caused by pickups and SUVs, even though they represented only 41 per cent of road vehicles. Article content Article content Vehicle design is the problem. For every 10-cm increase in the height of a vehicle's front-end, there is a 22 per cent increase in the risk of death to pedestrians in a crash. Article content Article content The pickup is about identity, not utility. Pickups have long been used for commerce, but their inflated size and their prevalence as passenger vehicles is reasonably new. While pickups are marketed for their capacity to conquer lunar landscapes, they're far more likely to be seen at a Tim Hortons drive-through. In most pickups, the cup-holder gets more use than the cargo hold. Article content Today's adventure-seeking pickup driver is a marketing creation akin to yesterday's Marlboro Man. But rugged independence didn't free the smoker from the risk of lung cancer, nor from reliance on public health care. Indeed, for all the 'you are free, strong, and independent' bravado sold by the auto makers today, the same companies needed a colossal public bailout in 2009 to survive. Article content Pickup drivers themselves are burdened with higher purchase and operating costs while almost always relying on publicly financed roads, not dusty or muddy trails. Meanwhile, the cost to pedestrians of this vehicle 'bloat' is paid in lives. And the general public suffers higher greenhouse gas emissions, greater demand on limited parking space and faster road deterioration.
Boston Globe
19-04-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
The rise of RFK Jr. is a wake-up call for out-of-touch liberals
Kennedy may be wrong about vaccines, autism, sunscreen, and raw milk, but his ability to tap into ambient feelings of rage and powerlessness has been remarkable. His rise is the result of his willingness — even when he's been dangerously wrong — to recognize Americans' fears about their health and the systems that maintain it. Advertisement Like its sister slogan 'Make America Great Again,' Kennedy's ' Mainstream liberals, by contrast, have refused to even acknowledge the longing for a 'fix.' The go-to liberal approach of consciousness-raising — the messaging equivalent of those lawn signs that say ' Advertisement What, exactly, does Kennedy propose to 'fix'? Public health-wise, America is doing a lot of things right, from the fluoridation of water that has prevented millions of painful cavities to widespread childhood vaccination that has wiped out once-routine epidemics of such deadly illnesses as polio. The American scientific establishment, with its deep pockets and cutting-edge medical research, has been the envy of the world ( But then there's people's everyday experience. Substances banned in other developed nations, from Meanwhile, the wellness industry has long capitalized on people's anxieties. Can't afford glasses? 'Holistic' healers claim Kennedy, who exudes the kind of authenticity that plays well on social media, is an icon of an emerging Advertisement One standard liberal response to figures like Kennedy has been fact-checking. That tactic Ultimately, to combat Kennedy, the liberal establishment must recognize that his popularity reflects a genuine crisis of trust. America is famous for its rugged individualism, but for every Marlboro Man there is a Advertisement Liberals must relearn the art of emotional resonance with ordinary people, which means acknowledging their suffering without judgment. Policy proposals must commit to real change that makes health care more accessible and affordable. Like Bill Clinton, liberals have to convince voters that they ' If liberals wish ever to regain political power, in short, they need to shed their reputation for being out of touch. They must acknowledge that the Trump-era Republican Party and Kennedy's ascension are mere symptoms of America's malaise. Kennedy's post as HHS secretary should be a wake-up call. It reflects a profound disconnect between institutional messaging and the public's lived experience. Actually making America healthy again starts with addressing that gap.
