http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. The U.S. government is abandoning a legal battle to require that cigarette packs carry a set of large and often macabre warning labels depicting the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-cigarette.html Health Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:44:18 EST news282926652 New research from Harvard School of Public Health (HPSH) shows that one year after the federal government passed a law banning word descriptors such as "light," "mild," and "low" on cigarette packages, smokers can still easily identify their brands because of color-coding that tobacco companies added to "light" packs after the ban. These findings suggest that the companies have, in effect, been able to evade the ban on misleading wording—thus still conveying the false and deceptive message that lights are safer than "regular" cigarettes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-tobacco-industry-evaded-fda-cigarette.html Health Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:00:09 EST news282404825 (AP)—A federal appeals court has denied the government's request to rehear a challenge to a requirement that tobacco companies put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-court-denies-rehearing-cigarette.html Health Wed, 05 Dec 2012 11:33:31 EST news273929598 All cigarettes sold in Australia will be in identical, plain packages from Saturday in a world first after the government overcame legal challenges from the tobacco industry. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-australia-readies-plain-cigarettes.html Health Fri, 30 Nov 2012 07:05:22 EST news273481509 (Medical Xpress)—Health warning labels have adorned cigarette packages since 1966, when they first appeared in the United States. And in the decades since, they have spread steadily around the world – in many instances, becoming more strongly worded, more prominently placed and more graphic over time. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-internal-tobacco-company-documents-reveal.html Addiction Mon, 19 Nov 2012 07:21:16 EST news272532064 Health warning labels (HWLs) on cigarette packages that use pictures to show the health consequences of smoking are effective in reaching adult smokers, according to the results of a new study published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Although previous studies have demonstrated that HWLs with pictorial imagery are more effective than HWLs with only text in increasing knowledge about smoking dangers and promoting the benefits of quitting, this new research shows which kind of pictures appears to work best among adult smokers in the U.S., including smokers from disadvantaged groups where smoking rates are highest. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-pictures-effective-cigarette.html Health Tue, 13 Nov 2012 00:00:01 EST news271955896 High cigarette prices, smoke-free air laws, marketing restrictions and other measures, all part of Brazil's strong tobacco control policies, are credited for a 50 percent reduction in smoking prevalence between 1989 and 2010. The reduction contributed to an estimated 420,000 lives saved during that time period. Those are the findings of a new study published today in PLOS Medicine by a team of researchers from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Brazilian National Cancer Institute. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-strong-tobacco-policies-brazil-credited.html Health Tue, 06 Nov 2012 17:00:16 EST news271417538 (AP)—The U.S. government is asking a federal appeals court to rehear a challenge to a requirement that tobacco companies to put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-feds-full-court-cigarette.html Health Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:42:19 EST news269012532 While Australia has recently passed legislation to ban logos from cigarette packages and to make plain packaging mandatory, other countries are still considering whether or not to take similar measures. New research published in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Public Health provides a report on the appeal of plain cigarette packs, compared to branded packs, among women in Brazil, and finds that plain packs reduce the appeal of their contents. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-plain-packaging-appeal.html Addiction Mon, 03 Sep 2012 20:00:05 EST news265893328 (AP)—An appeals court on Friday upheld a decision barring the U.S. government from requiring tobacco companies to put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages to show that smoking can disfigure and even kill. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-court-block-graphic-cigarette.html Addiction Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:50:01 EST news265027320 (Medical Xpress) -- They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but its worth might just be measurable in terms of lives, according to research by a University of South Carolina public health professor. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-graphic-images-smokers-attention.html Health Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:37:28 EST news243682634 Canada's tobacco manufacturers and importers on Tuesday were given until March 2012 to adopt new austere warning labels on cigarette packages featuring a woman dying of lung cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-canada-tougher-cigarette.html Health Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:25:42 EST news236366732