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Traditional cigarettes are addictive, and they kill. Now it appears that e-cigarettes, which electronically deliver nicotine in the absence of the lung-damaging smoke, might be a healthier alternative.
The American Cancer Society noted in June that, although the long-term effects of e-cigarettes are “not known,” they are “markedly less harmful” than traditional smoking. Sensing the changing tide, tobacco companies are going all in on e-cigarettes. And, as reported on CBS Sunday Morning, Dr. Gottlieb points out that in light of the impact of nicotine on the developing brain, a “strong regulatory process” is needed that puts new products “through an appropriate series of regulatory gates.”
Still, however, some people are dubious. The tobacco companies that are leading the transition are the same companies that once espoused the healthy benefits of smoking and suppressed counter information. Seeking greater profits, some products are marketed with enticing colors and flavors, with the goal of appealing to consumers – including teens. San Francisco has banned the sale of such products.
Dr. Gottlieb and others are quick to point out that what might be helpful for adults looking to quit also is enticing to teenagers. Using e-cigarettes would seem to be better than cigarette smoking. However, whether e-cigarettes are benign remains unknown.
Mental health takes center stage
An article in The Guardian by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, director general of the World Health Organization, and Lady Gaga, musician and cofounder of Born This Way Foundation, cited some sobering facts: 800,000 people kill themselves every year, a rate of six people every minute. Some are famous (Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain). Others are not. But all leave people who love them and are often devastated by the passing.
For the 25% of people who will experience mental health issues during their lives, admitting their need for help risks being stigmatized, and gaining that help is difficult. This is changing; however, according to the article, funding for mental health constitutes less than 1% of global aid funding.
But there is cause for optimism. WHO is working with countries on a global action plan on mental health. Community-based mental health care initiatives are providing help for those in need. The authors cite the success of the HIV/AIDS efforts as an example of what can be achieved. “That movement helped save millions of lives and is an illustration of the potential for collective human action to tackle seemingly insurmountable problems,” they wrote on the eve of World Mental Health Day, which is Oct. 10.
“The two of us have taken different paths in life. But both of us have seen how political leadership, funding, innovation, and individual acts of bravery and compassion can change the world. It is time to do the same for mental health.”
Navigating the pain of stillbirth
The impending birth of a child can be a time of happy anticipation and planning. But when the pregnancy ends in stillbirth, a person’s world is shattered. The experience is not rare – in the United Kingdom, for example, about nine babies are stillborn every day. When this horror happened to BBC journalist Fiona Crack, she channeled her grief into a chronicle of her journey and those of five other women with some hope and optimism.
“My arms ached. I thought I had a blood clot, but the doctors told me it was normal – a biological response to the shock that there was no living child for me to hold. I sobbed. My milk came through, marking my T-shirt, and I was too exhausted to be embarrassed,” Ms. Crack wrote.
There came a year of first events that would never be shared with her child, Willow – Christmas, Mother’s Day, and the dreaded first birthday. Slowly she mustered resolve. She also connected with five women around the United Kingdom who had faced the same horror.
Some solace has been found. But the scar will always remain. “Over the past year, my need to remember and memorialize Willow has jostled with my need for self-preservation. A year on, grief can still occasionally floor me, slicing behind my knees, but I can feel it coming and I can prepare, knowing I can survive its brief but powerful kick. Willow’s birth made me a Mum and Tim a Dad. My arms no longer ache like those first hours, but they are still empty. I am a mother without a baby,” Ms. Crack writes.
In the United States, about 24,000 stillbirths are reported each year, research shows. Mindfulness therapies have been shown to reduce posttraumatic stress symptoms among women after experiencing stillbirth.
Polygraph tests and employment
Jobs are not always easy to find. Once employed, there can be fear that job security is transient, as well as pressure to please the employer. How far is too far in efforts to gain this pleasure? An article on the BBC website explores the issue.
In some countries, including the United States, the issue is theoretical, since polygraph testing of employees is illegal. But elsewhere, such as in South Africa, there is no legal protection. And polygraph testing has been used in Kenya for prospective politicians. According to polygraph expert Doug Williams, polygraph testing is fallible and is mainly used as a means of intimidation.
“It’s a psychological billy club that coerces and intimidates a person into a confession. It scares the hell out of people. I would never work for a company that requires polygraphs because they’re starting the entire relationship off as an adversarial proceeding,” Mr. Williams said in an interview. The presumption of distrust can be toxic to a workplace.
“If most employees agree to take a lie detection test, then there would naturally come to be some suspicion of those who refuse to take it,” says Nick Bostrom, PhD, ethics professor at the University of Oxford (England). “Refusal would send a bad signal – it suggests you have something to hide.”
In a world where personal information can be just a few mouse clicks away, the issue is worth thinking about.
Music as a healing force
The first album from musician Cat Power (stage name of Chan Marshall) comes after a hiatus of 6 years. The intervening time has been spent as a mom and in other pursuits. The album, “Wanderer,” reflects the stabilizing influence of being a parent and the need to keep striving in life.
“I think I’ve found what I never thought I would have. I’ve found what I never thought I would see, which is becoming a parent. There are no words for what I have now in my heart. But I’m still myself. The psychospiritual parts of me are always looking for truth, always looking for beauty in all that truth,” Ms. Power said in an interview with NPR.
Music also is a way to deal with a life that included a parent who had substance abuse problems and her own bouts of depression. “There’s so much pain that people carry and try to avoid. … That’s why music is so incredible,” she said.
Ms. Power hopes that people who listen to her album will realize that they are not alone. “We’re all on this ball of mud, this tiny speck, a ball of mud together,” she said. “We all feel all the same things. Maybe we don’t know how to communicate well. Maybe we’re learning. Maybe this lifetime, for all of us, is just a learning spell.”
Traditional cigarettes are addictive, and they kill. Now it appears that e-cigarettes, which electronically deliver nicotine in the absence of the lung-damaging smoke, might be a healthier alternative.
The American Cancer Society noted in June that, although the long-term effects of e-cigarettes are “not known,” they are “markedly less harmful” than traditional smoking. Sensing the changing tide, tobacco companies are going all in on e-cigarettes. And, as reported on CBS Sunday Morning, Dr. Gottlieb points out that in light of the impact of nicotine on the developing brain, a “strong regulatory process” is needed that puts new products “through an appropriate series of regulatory gates.”
Still, however, some people are dubious. The tobacco companies that are leading the transition are the same companies that once espoused the healthy benefits of smoking and suppressed counter information. Seeking greater profits, some products are marketed with enticing colors and flavors, with the goal of appealing to consumers – including teens. San Francisco has banned the sale of such products.
Dr. Gottlieb and others are quick to point out that what might be helpful for adults looking to quit also is enticing to teenagers. Using e-cigarettes would seem to be better than cigarette smoking. However, whether e-cigarettes are benign remains unknown.
Mental health takes center stage
An article in The Guardian by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, director general of the World Health Organization, and Lady Gaga, musician and cofounder of Born This Way Foundation, cited some sobering facts: 800,000 people kill themselves every year, a rate of six people every minute. Some are famous (Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain). Others are not. But all leave people who love them and are often devastated by the passing.
For the 25% of people who will experience mental health issues during their lives, admitting their need for help risks being stigmatized, and gaining that help is difficult. This is changing; however, according to the article, funding for mental health constitutes less than 1% of global aid funding.
But there is cause for optimism. WHO is working with countries on a global action plan on mental health. Community-based mental health care initiatives are providing help for those in need. The authors cite the success of the HIV/AIDS efforts as an example of what can be achieved. “That movement helped save millions of lives and is an illustration of the potential for collective human action to tackle seemingly insurmountable problems,” they wrote on the eve of World Mental Health Day, which is Oct. 10.
“The two of us have taken different paths in life. But both of us have seen how political leadership, funding, innovation, and individual acts of bravery and compassion can change the world. It is time to do the same for mental health.”
Navigating the pain of stillbirth
The impending birth of a child can be a time of happy anticipation and planning. But when the pregnancy ends in stillbirth, a person’s world is shattered. The experience is not rare – in the United Kingdom, for example, about nine babies are stillborn every day. When this horror happened to BBC journalist Fiona Crack, she channeled her grief into a chronicle of her journey and those of five other women with some hope and optimism.
“My arms ached. I thought I had a blood clot, but the doctors told me it was normal – a biological response to the shock that there was no living child for me to hold. I sobbed. My milk came through, marking my T-shirt, and I was too exhausted to be embarrassed,” Ms. Crack wrote.
There came a year of first events that would never be shared with her child, Willow – Christmas, Mother’s Day, and the dreaded first birthday. Slowly she mustered resolve. She also connected with five women around the United Kingdom who had faced the same horror.
Some solace has been found. But the scar will always remain. “Over the past year, my need to remember and memorialize Willow has jostled with my need for self-preservation. A year on, grief can still occasionally floor me, slicing behind my knees, but I can feel it coming and I can prepare, knowing I can survive its brief but powerful kick. Willow’s birth made me a Mum and Tim a Dad. My arms no longer ache like those first hours, but they are still empty. I am a mother without a baby,” Ms. Crack writes.
In the United States, about 24,000 stillbirths are reported each year, research shows. Mindfulness therapies have been shown to reduce posttraumatic stress symptoms among women after experiencing stillbirth.
Polygraph tests and employment
Jobs are not always easy to find. Once employed, there can be fear that job security is transient, as well as pressure to please the employer. How far is too far in efforts to gain this pleasure? An article on the BBC website explores the issue.
In some countries, including the United States, the issue is theoretical, since polygraph testing of employees is illegal. But elsewhere, such as in South Africa, there is no legal protection. And polygraph testing has been used in Kenya for prospective politicians. According to polygraph expert Doug Williams, polygraph testing is fallible and is mainly used as a means of intimidation.
“It’s a psychological billy club that coerces and intimidates a person into a confession. It scares the hell out of people. I would never work for a company that requires polygraphs because they’re starting the entire relationship off as an adversarial proceeding,” Mr. Williams said in an interview. The presumption of distrust can be toxic to a workplace.
“If most employees agree to take a lie detection test, then there would naturally come to be some suspicion of those who refuse to take it,” says Nick Bostrom, PhD, ethics professor at the University of Oxford (England). “Refusal would send a bad signal – it suggests you have something to hide.”
In a world where personal information can be just a few mouse clicks away, the issue is worth thinking about.
Music as a healing force
The first album from musician Cat Power (stage name of Chan Marshall) comes after a hiatus of 6 years. The intervening time has been spent as a mom and in other pursuits. The album, “Wanderer,” reflects the stabilizing influence of being a parent and the need to keep striving in life.
“I think I’ve found what I never thought I would have. I’ve found what I never thought I would see, which is becoming a parent. There are no words for what I have now in my heart. But I’m still myself. The psychospiritual parts of me are always looking for truth, always looking for beauty in all that truth,” Ms. Power said in an interview with NPR.
Music also is a way to deal with a life that included a parent who had substance abuse problems and her own bouts of depression. “There’s so much pain that people carry and try to avoid. … That’s why music is so incredible,” she said.
Ms. Power hopes that people who listen to her album will realize that they are not alone. “We’re all on this ball of mud, this tiny speck, a ball of mud together,” she said. “We all feel all the same things. Maybe we don’t know how to communicate well. Maybe we’re learning. Maybe this lifetime, for all of us, is just a learning spell.”
Traditional cigarettes are addictive, and they kill. Now it appears that e-cigarettes, which electronically deliver nicotine in the absence of the lung-damaging smoke, might be a healthier alternative.
The American Cancer Society noted in June that, although the long-term effects of e-cigarettes are “not known,” they are “markedly less harmful” than traditional smoking. Sensing the changing tide, tobacco companies are going all in on e-cigarettes. And, as reported on CBS Sunday Morning, Dr. Gottlieb points out that in light of the impact of nicotine on the developing brain, a “strong regulatory process” is needed that puts new products “through an appropriate series of regulatory gates.”
Still, however, some people are dubious. The tobacco companies that are leading the transition are the same companies that once espoused the healthy benefits of smoking and suppressed counter information. Seeking greater profits, some products are marketed with enticing colors and flavors, with the goal of appealing to consumers – including teens. San Francisco has banned the sale of such products.
Dr. Gottlieb and others are quick to point out that what might be helpful for adults looking to quit also is enticing to teenagers. Using e-cigarettes would seem to be better than cigarette smoking. However, whether e-cigarettes are benign remains unknown.
Mental health takes center stage
An article in The Guardian by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, director general of the World Health Organization, and Lady Gaga, musician and cofounder of Born This Way Foundation, cited some sobering facts: 800,000 people kill themselves every year, a rate of six people every minute. Some are famous (Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain). Others are not. But all leave people who love them and are often devastated by the passing.
For the 25% of people who will experience mental health issues during their lives, admitting their need for help risks being stigmatized, and gaining that help is difficult. This is changing; however, according to the article, funding for mental health constitutes less than 1% of global aid funding.
But there is cause for optimism. WHO is working with countries on a global action plan on mental health. Community-based mental health care initiatives are providing help for those in need. The authors cite the success of the HIV/AIDS efforts as an example of what can be achieved. “That movement helped save millions of lives and is an illustration of the potential for collective human action to tackle seemingly insurmountable problems,” they wrote on the eve of World Mental Health Day, which is Oct. 10.
“The two of us have taken different paths in life. But both of us have seen how political leadership, funding, innovation, and individual acts of bravery and compassion can change the world. It is time to do the same for mental health.”
Navigating the pain of stillbirth
The impending birth of a child can be a time of happy anticipation and planning. But when the pregnancy ends in stillbirth, a person’s world is shattered. The experience is not rare – in the United Kingdom, for example, about nine babies are stillborn every day. When this horror happened to BBC journalist Fiona Crack, she channeled her grief into a chronicle of her journey and those of five other women with some hope and optimism.
“My arms ached. I thought I had a blood clot, but the doctors told me it was normal – a biological response to the shock that there was no living child for me to hold. I sobbed. My milk came through, marking my T-shirt, and I was too exhausted to be embarrassed,” Ms. Crack wrote.
There came a year of first events that would never be shared with her child, Willow – Christmas, Mother’s Day, and the dreaded first birthday. Slowly she mustered resolve. She also connected with five women around the United Kingdom who had faced the same horror.
Some solace has been found. But the scar will always remain. “Over the past year, my need to remember and memorialize Willow has jostled with my need for self-preservation. A year on, grief can still occasionally floor me, slicing behind my knees, but I can feel it coming and I can prepare, knowing I can survive its brief but powerful kick. Willow’s birth made me a Mum and Tim a Dad. My arms no longer ache like those first hours, but they are still empty. I am a mother without a baby,” Ms. Crack writes.
In the United States, about 24,000 stillbirths are reported each year, research shows. Mindfulness therapies have been shown to reduce posttraumatic stress symptoms among women after experiencing stillbirth.
Polygraph tests and employment
Jobs are not always easy to find. Once employed, there can be fear that job security is transient, as well as pressure to please the employer. How far is too far in efforts to gain this pleasure? An article on the BBC website explores the issue.
In some countries, including the United States, the issue is theoretical, since polygraph testing of employees is illegal. But elsewhere, such as in South Africa, there is no legal protection. And polygraph testing has been used in Kenya for prospective politicians. According to polygraph expert Doug Williams, polygraph testing is fallible and is mainly used as a means of intimidation.
“It’s a psychological billy club that coerces and intimidates a person into a confession. It scares the hell out of people. I would never work for a company that requires polygraphs because they’re starting the entire relationship off as an adversarial proceeding,” Mr. Williams said in an interview. The presumption of distrust can be toxic to a workplace.
“If most employees agree to take a lie detection test, then there would naturally come to be some suspicion of those who refuse to take it,” says Nick Bostrom, PhD, ethics professor at the University of Oxford (England). “Refusal would send a bad signal – it suggests you have something to hide.”
In a world where personal information can be just a few mouse clicks away, the issue is worth thinking about.
Music as a healing force
The first album from musician Cat Power (stage name of Chan Marshall) comes after a hiatus of 6 years. The intervening time has been spent as a mom and in other pursuits. The album, “Wanderer,” reflects the stabilizing influence of being a parent and the need to keep striving in life.
“I think I’ve found what I never thought I would have. I’ve found what I never thought I would see, which is becoming a parent. There are no words for what I have now in my heart. But I’m still myself. The psychospiritual parts of me are always looking for truth, always looking for beauty in all that truth,” Ms. Power said in an interview with NPR.
Music also is a way to deal with a life that included a parent who had substance abuse problems and her own bouts of depression. “There’s so much pain that people carry and try to avoid. … That’s why music is so incredible,” she said.
Ms. Power hopes that people who listen to her album will realize that they are not alone. “We’re all on this ball of mud, this tiny speck, a ball of mud together,” she said. “We all feel all the same things. Maybe we don’t know how to communicate well. Maybe we’re learning. Maybe this lifetime, for all of us, is just a learning spell.”