Dr. Brad Rodu
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Budgets/TaxesRegulationTobacco
Age Restrictions on Smoking, Drinking and Driving
by Brad Rodu April 18, 2017State legislatures have been lobbied in a coordinated effort, called Tobacco 21 (here), to raise the minimum age for tobacco sales from 18 to 21 years. Hawaii, California and the…
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This is a tale of two tobacco users and the very different medical advice they received. In 2005, two physicians and a dentist published a report in the American Journal…
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Budgets/TaxesRegulationTobacco
Educating Air Force Generals About Tobacco Use & Risks
by Brad Rodu March 27, 2017The Military Health System and the Defense Health Agency last November published a grossly misleading article on their website titled, “Quit the spit: Smokeless tobacco no better than lit” (archived…
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Budgets/TaxesRegulationTobacco
Department of Defense Anti-Smokeless Campaign Is “50” Shades Darker
by Brad Rodu March 15, 2017February is a popular month for tobacco prohibitionists to attack smokeless tobacco (ST). A year ago, this blog refuted seven false claims (here) from county health departments. This year, the…
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Budgets/TaxesRegulationTobacco
Heavy Snus Use: Possible Link to Type 2 Diabetes
by Brad Rodu March 3, 2017A Swedish research study finds that heavy consumption of snus is associated with type 2 diabetes (abstract here). Analyzing data from six groups of Swedish men, researchers found no risk…
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Budgets/TaxesRegulationTobacco
Nicotine, Smokeless Tobacco & Tourette Syndrome
by Brad Rodu February 23, 2017A man with Tourette Syndrome, a nerve disorder developing in childhood and involving muscle tics (repetitive involuntary movement) and voice problems (here), recently posted online his experience with smokeless tobacco. …
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Budgets/TaxesFeaturedRegulationTobacco
Complicated Models Can’t Alter the Data: Smoking Among Youth and Young Adults Is Way Down
by Brad Rodu February 8, 2017Smoking among high school students declined from almost 16% in 2011 to 9% in 2014 – a reduction of 43% in just three years. That is according to data from…
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Budgets/TaxesRegulationTobacco
Experts to FDA: End the Smokeless Tobacco Misinformation Campaign
by Brad Rodu February 7, 2017Two internationally renowned tobacco policy experts are urging “the FDA and like campaigns and health information websites” to “follow established ethical principles and accepted communication methods to inform the public…
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Budgets/TaxesTobacco
New WHO/NCI Report Falsely Conflates Smoking & Tobacco
by Brad Rodu February 1, 2017The World Health Organization and the U.S. National Cancer Institute recently published a 700-page report on the economic consequences of smoking, tobacco use, or both (here). The dozens of tobacco…
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Budgets/TaxesTobacco
CDC Omitted Important Findings in Report on 2015 National Youth Tobacco Survey
by Brad Rodu January 17, 2017The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released selected information from the 2015 National Youth Tobacco Survey in April 2016 (here). The agency cherry-picked numbers from previous surveys to…
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Budgets/TaxesTobacco
Sacramento Bee Errs Twice with Fake News on E-Cigarettes
by Brad Rodu December 28, 2016The Sacramento Bee on January 21 published a column written by a hearing aids company executive. Titled “E-cigarettes may also cause hearing loss” (here), the piece asserted that “damage to…
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Budgets/TaxesTobacco
FDA Rejects Plea to Correct Smokeless Tobacco Warnings; A Closer Look at Flawed Interpretations
by Brad Rodu December 21, 2016After two and a half years’ review, the FDA Center for Tobacco Products rejected Swedish Match’s request to eliminate or revise the 30-year-old, egregiously inaccurate warnings that are required to…
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Budgets/TaxesTobacco
Smokers: It’s Never Too Late to Quit or Switch to Smoke-Free
by Brad Rodu December 10, 2016A new study from researchers at the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Aging finds that even smokers in their 60s who quit can reduce their chances of…