Word: tobacco
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Steadily, the line between diseases of the rich (heart disease, diabetes, lung cancer) and those of the poor (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria) has blurred. As citizens of developing nations get fatter and take up tobacco-smoking - habits of the developed world - they are also under increasing threat from the same chronic noncommunicable diseases (CNCD) that ail the wealthy...
...diabetes can be avoided with basic behavioral changes and inexpensive drug treatments. But so far there has been little effort to tailor those interventions to low- and middle-income nations, such as China and Brazil, where chronic diseases are expected to take a serious toll in coming decades. "Avoiding tobacco, improving nutrition and getting more exercise - we know this works," says Daar. "But the trick is how you get the public to change their behavior...
...During World War II, soldiers were issued with free cigarettes, courtesy of the tobacco companies; with millions of nicotine-addicted G.I.s returning home after the war, the still largely unregulated tobacco industry aggressively promoted cigarettes throughout the 1950s. Companies sought to distinguish their brands with popular slogans like "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should," "Light up a Lucky," and "For more pure pleasure, have a Camel!" Many cigarette makers also sponsored television shows - when Winston's ad introduced the long-running CBS Western Gunsmoke, "cigarette" was replaced in their slogan by the sound of two gunshots. For tobacco companies...
...Increasing public scrutiny of the tobacco industry finally came to a head in 1964 when the U.S. Surgeon General, Luther Terry, released his Advisory Committee Report on Smoking and Health. The staggeringly comprehensive report was based on more than 7,000 scientific studies linking smoking with lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases. The report led a surge in restrictive legislation, including mandatory warning labels on packages and a ban on advertising on radio or television. Tobacco companies in return simply changed strategy, advertising to younger markets with candy cigarettes and mascots like Joe Camel - whom a 1991 study found...
...Once the new bill becomes law, the FDA will have the regulatory power over the tobacco industry that has eluded them over the past two decades. Among the new restrictions are a ban on tobacco advertising within 1,000 ft. of schools and playgrounds, a requirement that warning labels cover 50 percent of the front and back of cigarette packs and the end of sweetened and spice-flavored cigarettes. President Obama (who has struggled with his own nicotine addiction) lauded the bill, saying in a statement that its passage "truly defines change in Washington." He is expected to sign...