Most of us now realize that smoking leads to lung cancer (and other diseases), but not everyone realizes that tobacco companies HID this data for years. A new analysis of tobacco industry documents shows that Philip Morris manipulated data on the effects of additives in cigarettes, including menthol, obscuring actual toxicity levels and increasing the risk of heart, cancer and other diseases for smokers. This data provides evidence that hundreds of additives, including menthol, should be eliminated from cigarettes on public health grounds.
read more

Why do some older women smoke (when they surely know better by now)? It may make them feel sexy: a recent study discovered that postmenopausal women who smoke have higher androgen and estrogen levels than non-smoking women, with sex hormone levels being highest in heavy smokers.
read more

This was kept as a deep, dark secret for almost 40 years, from its discovery in 1959 through 1998, when it was revealed as part of a legal settlement. According to a new study, tobacco companies knew that cigarette smoke contained radioactive alpha particles for more than four decades and developed "deep and intimate" knowledge of these particles’ cancer-causing potential, but they deliberately kept their findings from the public.
read more