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You've seen them.  The commercials where the woman talks about losing her fingers, the obese one about having to have her son wash her and take care of her toileting needs because she's confined to bed. The one I find the most horrifying, the woman who has to hold an artificial voice box to her throat to talk, her voice a mechanical, unhuman sound. Seems they've worked. More than 200,000 Americans quit smoking after the graphic, federally-funded, anti-cigarette ads ran earlier this year, according to Brady Dennis at The Washington Post. “The TIPS campaign surpassed our expectations,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden told reporters in a call Monday, saying the results represented more than a doubling of initial goals, Dennis notes. “That’s a tremendous success story. These are Americans that will live longer lives, healthier lives with lower health-care costs.” Even better, 100,000 more are expected to quit. "The $54 million ad series, which ended in June 2012, featu...

It's weird how things happen.  Last night at a dinner party I was talking to a woman from Britain (after we got all the royal baby stuff out of the way) about what it used to be like in pubs and restaurants, before all the No Smoking laws went into effect. And today in The Wall Street Journal, there's a story about the 10th anniversary of their enforcement in NYC.  The Associated Press goes on to say, "Few measures in Albany changed life in New York more." Would you believe the number of smokers trying to quite during that time increased to 65%, according to Blair Horner, vice president of advocacy at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the AP notes? I'd have to agree.  I've never smoked (finally, I'm in the 1% of something!), but my mother did, and I hated the smell of smoke in the house and the ashtrays, and the cloud of smoke in bars when I was hanging out, looking for a mate.  The Brit remembered a couch that turned b...

No, you're not imagining it.  And it's not just age. If you're around smokers, that memory loss that's been terrifying you may very well be attributable to being around smokers, according to Fox News, while the Mail Online in the UK notes that the same study found that non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke forgot 20% more than non-smokers who were not exposed. But before you panic, those studied "reported being exposed to second-hand smoke for an average of 25 hours a week for an average of four and a half years."  They included people who lived with smokers or spent a lot of time in designated smoking areas (euw).   http://radio.foxnews.com/2012/09/23/housecall-for-health-second-hand-smoke-memory-loss/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2202636/Non-smokers-regularly-exposed-second-hand-smoke-risk-damaging-memory.html#axzz2Kbc0SHYx