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The One Key Piece Missing From NYC’s Congestion Car Toll

News Feed
Monday, March 18, 2024

A nurse boarded the Bx18A bus, whose route circles between the Morris Heights and Highbridge neighborhoods of the Bronx. Having an anxious moment most New Yorkers will find relatable, she began hunting through her purse to look for her MetroCard to pay for her ride. When the driver pointed to a sign indicating that this was a “fare free” bus—part of an experiment in free public transit created by the state legislature last year—the nurse started dancing.I’d like to have what she’s having, please. I think we all would. “She cha-cha’d down the bus,” said Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani Thursday, telling the story in a speech on the New York Assembly floor. Mamdani was introducing his “Get Congestion Pricing Right” bill, which he said would “expand that feeling—of joy, of relief” by making 15 more bus routes free, across the city, as well as increasing bus frequency. Over the next couple weeks, the bill will be part of the always-harrowing negotiations with Governor Kathy Hochul and among the state legislators. Mamdani called his bill “Get Congestion Pricing Right” in part because, right now, New York risks getting it wrong: Few good ideas have been resisted as loudly as New York’s plan to charge a toll to drivers entering Manhattan ($15 for most) and use the money to improve public transit. The policy, set to take effect June 15, has been mocked, attacked, and misrepresented for years. Now that it’s finally happening, it’s crucial that it work well for the majority of New Yorkers. Otherwise, backlash could quickly sink the policy and discourage similar efforts in the future—in New York and elsewhere. For congestion pricing to work, as Mamdani clearly understands, public transit needs to be good enough to present a viable alternative to the $15 toll. Having fewer cars on the roads is demonstrably fantastic for the environment, public health, and quality of life. In Stockholm, congestion pricing has reduced carbon emissions by 20 percent. In London, it has reduced the nitrogen oxides and particulates in the air by 12 percent. Cleaner air will in turn improve health of New Yorkers: In Stockholm, congestion pricing cut the number of asthma-related hospital visits in half. Reducing traffic—the MTA estimates the plan will cut traffic by 17 percent—will also ease the stress of driving for anyone who has to do so, and make much of the city more pleasant for pedestrians, especially crucial since New Yorkers walk more than any other group of Americans. Reducing traffic will also save lives: Since emergency vehicles are among the few exempted from the toll, they will presumably be able to move more quickly to put out fires and get people to the hospital.  Congestion pricing will also raise $1 billion a year for the public transit system, allowing the MTA to make the kinds of improvements that will save New Yorkers money, time, and irritation. These improvements will also boost ridership; this will make the subway safer, which will, in turn, boost ridership further.Yet congestion pricing has received a great deal of pseudo-populist mockery and resistance. The New York Post has run negative articles on the topic on an almost daily basis (“Congestion Pricing Will Leave NYC in a Jam” and “Time for Congestion Pricing to Hit the Road”  are just two recent headlines). The policy has faced lawsuits from city workers’ unions, the governor of New Jersey, the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, the Staten Island borough president, and a range of other injured parties. The gist of all the criticism is that the policy will hurt ordinary hardworking New Yorkers. Although New York’s policy does still have flaws that must be fixed—insufficient exemptions for low-income drivers, for instance—the populist argument against congestion pricing is mostly disingenuous. Only 4 percent of outer-borough New Yorkers drive to Manhattan to work; 57 percent take public transit. And only 2 percent of low-income outer-borough New Yorkers, specifically, would be asked to pay a congestion fee as part of their commute; 61 percent take public transit. As we’ve seen in France with the “gilet jaune” movement, in which motorists wore yellow vests and blocked highways to protest an unpopular gas tax in 2018, and the more recent farmer protests against the European Union’s effort to limit harmful pesticides, this kind of populist anti-environmental argument resonates when large numbers of ordinary people don’t feel their material needs have been considered by the elites in charge. Congestion pricing carries precisely this kind of baggage, even though it will improve our lives in many ways. That means the big question politically, the one that will determine congestion pricing’s longevity as a policy, is whether the vast majority of New Yorkers will experience its benefits and how quickly. We must see the positive results of congestion pricing in our own lives to balance out the rage induced by what behavioral economists call “the pain of paying” (research shows that we are far more bothered about small expenses that we pay frequently and can see, like milk or gas, than about bigger expenses we don’t pay often or that are simply deducted from our paychecks, like our health insurance premiums). Unfortunately, we can’t see or feel reductions in carbon emissions. Clean air is more ambiguous. We do notice pollution. We freak out about bad air quality warnings in the summer. And last year when the smoke from the Canadian wildfires turned New York City’s skies red and smoky, I saw children running out of school buildings to gape at it in terror. Some of us will undoubtedly feel, over time, that our asthma or headaches have improved, or that we are breathing more easily. But it’s possible that for many people, the clean air might be an invisible benefit, the kind that is politically troublesome because it doesn’t reward its architects. By contrast, New Yorkers have in recent years been complaining about the subway a lot and will notice if it gets better. Public transit is one of the least abstract political issues for New Yorkers, affecting where we can work, whether we can get there in time, and whether we can pick up our kids on time at the end of the day. Ridership has suffered since the pandemic. Sensationally reported crimes on the subway have contributed to anxiety about the system, which New York’s governor has idiotically played into by sending in the National Guard. Less dramatic but perhaps far more frustrating to most people, the service has deteriorated recently, with more delays and disruptions, and even derailments, which are quite scary. The political reception of congestion pricing, then, will be mostly determined by how tangibly it improves our transit system. Of course, there’s no evading the biggest problem with congestion pricing, which is that people hate being forced to change cherished habits. New York City is a great place to implement this policy, since it’s already a terrible city for motorists, the transit system goes almost everywhere, and many New Yorkers already avoid driving. But those who are attached to their cars will be vocal in their objections. Such gripes will resonate and spread like a contagion if people don’t see the positive effects of congestion pricing right away.That’s why immediate measures like Assemblyman Mamdani’s “Get Congestion Pricing Right” proposal—making more bus routes free and more frequent, before the revenue from congestion pricing even kicks in—are so crucial. Good environmental policy prods us to change our behavior while making our lives better at the same time. Congestion pricing will do this: It will obligate driving less by forcing cost-benefit analysis of our car trips, while also rewarding us by transforming urban life for the better—not just with cleaner air and better health, but by ensuring that we all waste less of our lives sitting in traffic. But the biggest benefit for most people will be the investments in our transit system, making a safer, more convenient, and joyful experience. If more of us start feeling anything close to the happiness that nurse felt on the Bx18A that day, congestion pricing will be a lasting political success.

A nurse boarded the Bx18A bus, whose route circles between the Morris Heights and Highbridge neighborhoods of the Bronx. Having an anxious moment most New Yorkers will find relatable, she began hunting through her purse to look for her MetroCard to pay for her ride. When the driver pointed to a sign indicating that this was a “fare free” bus—part of an experiment in free public transit created by the state legislature last year—the nurse started dancing.I’d like to have what she’s having, please. I think we all would. “She cha-cha’d down the bus,” said Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani Thursday, telling the story in a speech on the New York Assembly floor. Mamdani was introducing his “Get Congestion Pricing Right” bill, which he said would “expand that feeling—of joy, of relief” by making 15 more bus routes free, across the city, as well as increasing bus frequency. Over the next couple weeks, the bill will be part of the always-harrowing negotiations with Governor Kathy Hochul and among the state legislators. Mamdani called his bill “Get Congestion Pricing Right” in part because, right now, New York risks getting it wrong: Few good ideas have been resisted as loudly as New York’s plan to charge a toll to drivers entering Manhattan ($15 for most) and use the money to improve public transit. The policy, set to take effect June 15, has been mocked, attacked, and misrepresented for years. Now that it’s finally happening, it’s crucial that it work well for the majority of New Yorkers. Otherwise, backlash could quickly sink the policy and discourage similar efforts in the future—in New York and elsewhere. For congestion pricing to work, as Mamdani clearly understands, public transit needs to be good enough to present a viable alternative to the $15 toll. Having fewer cars on the roads is demonstrably fantastic for the environment, public health, and quality of life. In Stockholm, congestion pricing has reduced carbon emissions by 20 percent. In London, it has reduced the nitrogen oxides and particulates in the air by 12 percent. Cleaner air will in turn improve health of New Yorkers: In Stockholm, congestion pricing cut the number of asthma-related hospital visits in half. Reducing traffic—the MTA estimates the plan will cut traffic by 17 percent—will also ease the stress of driving for anyone who has to do so, and make much of the city more pleasant for pedestrians, especially crucial since New Yorkers walk more than any other group of Americans. Reducing traffic will also save lives: Since emergency vehicles are among the few exempted from the toll, they will presumably be able to move more quickly to put out fires and get people to the hospital.  Congestion pricing will also raise $1 billion a year for the public transit system, allowing the MTA to make the kinds of improvements that will save New Yorkers money, time, and irritation. These improvements will also boost ridership; this will make the subway safer, which will, in turn, boost ridership further.Yet congestion pricing has received a great deal of pseudo-populist mockery and resistance. The New York Post has run negative articles on the topic on an almost daily basis (“Congestion Pricing Will Leave NYC in a Jam” and “Time for Congestion Pricing to Hit the Road”  are just two recent headlines). The policy has faced lawsuits from city workers’ unions, the governor of New Jersey, the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, the Staten Island borough president, and a range of other injured parties. The gist of all the criticism is that the policy will hurt ordinary hardworking New Yorkers. Although New York’s policy does still have flaws that must be fixed—insufficient exemptions for low-income drivers, for instance—the populist argument against congestion pricing is mostly disingenuous. Only 4 percent of outer-borough New Yorkers drive to Manhattan to work; 57 percent take public transit. And only 2 percent of low-income outer-borough New Yorkers, specifically, would be asked to pay a congestion fee as part of their commute; 61 percent take public transit. As we’ve seen in France with the “gilet jaune” movement, in which motorists wore yellow vests and blocked highways to protest an unpopular gas tax in 2018, and the more recent farmer protests against the European Union’s effort to limit harmful pesticides, this kind of populist anti-environmental argument resonates when large numbers of ordinary people don’t feel their material needs have been considered by the elites in charge. Congestion pricing carries precisely this kind of baggage, even though it will improve our lives in many ways. That means the big question politically, the one that will determine congestion pricing’s longevity as a policy, is whether the vast majority of New Yorkers will experience its benefits and how quickly. We must see the positive results of congestion pricing in our own lives to balance out the rage induced by what behavioral economists call “the pain of paying” (research shows that we are far more bothered about small expenses that we pay frequently and can see, like milk or gas, than about bigger expenses we don’t pay often or that are simply deducted from our paychecks, like our health insurance premiums). Unfortunately, we can’t see or feel reductions in carbon emissions. Clean air is more ambiguous. We do notice pollution. We freak out about bad air quality warnings in the summer. And last year when the smoke from the Canadian wildfires turned New York City’s skies red and smoky, I saw children running out of school buildings to gape at it in terror. Some of us will undoubtedly feel, over time, that our asthma or headaches have improved, or that we are breathing more easily. But it’s possible that for many people, the clean air might be an invisible benefit, the kind that is politically troublesome because it doesn’t reward its architects. By contrast, New Yorkers have in recent years been complaining about the subway a lot and will notice if it gets better. Public transit is one of the least abstract political issues for New Yorkers, affecting where we can work, whether we can get there in time, and whether we can pick up our kids on time at the end of the day. Ridership has suffered since the pandemic. Sensationally reported crimes on the subway have contributed to anxiety about the system, which New York’s governor has idiotically played into by sending in the National Guard. Less dramatic but perhaps far more frustrating to most people, the service has deteriorated recently, with more delays and disruptions, and even derailments, which are quite scary. The political reception of congestion pricing, then, will be mostly determined by how tangibly it improves our transit system. Of course, there’s no evading the biggest problem with congestion pricing, which is that people hate being forced to change cherished habits. New York City is a great place to implement this policy, since it’s already a terrible city for motorists, the transit system goes almost everywhere, and many New Yorkers already avoid driving. But those who are attached to their cars will be vocal in their objections. Such gripes will resonate and spread like a contagion if people don’t see the positive effects of congestion pricing right away.That’s why immediate measures like Assemblyman Mamdani’s “Get Congestion Pricing Right” proposal—making more bus routes free and more frequent, before the revenue from congestion pricing even kicks in—are so crucial. Good environmental policy prods us to change our behavior while making our lives better at the same time. Congestion pricing will do this: It will obligate driving less by forcing cost-benefit analysis of our car trips, while also rewarding us by transforming urban life for the better—not just with cleaner air and better health, but by ensuring that we all waste less of our lives sitting in traffic. But the biggest benefit for most people will be the investments in our transit system, making a safer, more convenient, and joyful experience. If more of us start feeling anything close to the happiness that nurse felt on the Bx18A that day, congestion pricing will be a lasting political success.

A nurse boarded the Bx18A bus, whose route circles between the Morris Heights and Highbridge neighborhoods of the Bronx. Having an anxious moment most New Yorkers will find relatable, she began hunting through her purse to look for her MetroCard to pay for her ride. When the driver pointed to a sign indicating that this was a “fare free” bus—part of an experiment in free public transit created by the state legislature last year—the nurse started dancing.

I’d like to have what she’s having, please. I think we all would. “She cha-cha’d down the bus,” said Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani Thursday, telling the story in a speech on the New York Assembly floor. Mamdani was introducing his “Get Congestion Pricing Right” bill, which he said would “expand that feeling—of joy, of relief” by making 15 more bus routes free, across the city, as well as increasing bus frequency. Over the next couple weeks, the bill will be part of the always-harrowing negotiations with Governor Kathy Hochul and among the state legislators.

Mamdani called his bill “Get Congestion Pricing Right” in part because, right now, New York risks getting it wrong: Few good ideas have been resisted as loudly as New York’s plan to charge a toll to drivers entering Manhattan ($15 for most) and use the money to improve public transit. The policy, set to take effect June 15, has been mocked, attacked, and misrepresented for years. Now that it’s finally happening, it’s crucial that it work well for the majority of New Yorkers. Otherwise, backlash could quickly sink the policy and discourage similar efforts in the future—in New York and elsewhere. For congestion pricing to work, as Mamdani clearly understands, public transit needs to be good enough to present a viable alternative to the $15 toll.

Having fewer cars on the roads is demonstrably fantastic for the environment, public health, and quality of life. In Stockholm, congestion pricing has reduced carbon emissions by 20 percent. In London, it has reduced the nitrogen oxides and particulates in the air by 12 percent. Cleaner air will in turn improve health of New Yorkers: In Stockholm, congestion pricing cut the number of asthma-related hospital visits in half. Reducing traffic—the MTA estimates the plan will cut traffic by 17 percent—will also ease the stress of driving for anyone who has to do so, and make much of the city more pleasant for pedestrians, especially crucial since New Yorkers walk more than any other group of Americans. Reducing traffic will also save lives: Since emergency vehicles are among the few exempted from the toll, they will presumably be able to move more quickly to put out fires and get people to the hospital. 

Congestion pricing will also raise $1 billion a year for the public transit system, allowing the MTA to make the kinds of improvements that will save New Yorkers money, time, and irritation. These improvements will also boost ridership; this will make the subway safer, which will, in turn, boost ridership further.

Yet congestion pricing has received a great deal of pseudo-populist mockery and resistance. The New York Post has run negative articles on the topic on an almost daily basis (“Congestion Pricing Will Leave NYC in a Jam” and “Time for Congestion Pricing to Hit the Road”  are just two recent headlines). The policy has faced lawsuits from city workers’ unions, the governor of New Jersey, the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, the Staten Island borough president, and a range of other injured parties. The gist of all the criticism is that the policy will hurt ordinary hardworking New Yorkers.

Although New York’s policy does still have flaws that must be fixed—insufficient exemptions for low-income drivers, for instance—the populist argument against congestion pricing is mostly disingenuous. Only 4 percent of outer-borough New Yorkers drive to Manhattan to work; 57 percent take public transit. And only 2 percent of low-income outer-borough New Yorkers, specifically, would be asked to pay a congestion fee as part of their commute; 61 percent take public transit.

As we’ve seen in France with the “gilet jaune” movement, in which motorists wore yellow vests and blocked highways to protest an unpopular gas tax in 2018, and the more recent farmer protests against the European Union’s effort to limit harmful pesticides, this kind of populist anti-environmental argument resonates when large numbers of ordinary people don’t feel their material needs have been considered by the elites in charge.

Congestion pricing carries precisely this kind of baggage, even though it will improve our lives in many ways. That means the big question politically, the one that will determine congestion pricing’s longevity as a policy, is whether the vast majority of New Yorkers will experience its benefits and how quickly.

We must see the positive results of congestion pricing in our own lives to balance out the rage induced by what behavioral economists call “the pain of paying” (research shows that we are far more bothered about small expenses that we pay frequently and can see, like milk or gas, than about bigger expenses we don’t pay often or that are simply deducted from our paychecks, like our health insurance premiums). Unfortunately, we can’t see or feel reductions in carbon emissions. Clean air is more ambiguous. We do notice pollution. We freak out about bad air quality warnings in the summer. And last year when the smoke from the Canadian wildfires turned New York City’s skies red and smoky, I saw children running out of school buildings to gape at it in terror. Some of us will undoubtedly feel, over time, that our asthma or headaches have improved, or that we are breathing more easily. But it’s possible that for many people, the clean air might be an invisible benefit, the kind that is politically troublesome because it doesn’t reward its architects.

By contrast, New Yorkers have in recent years been complaining about the subway a lot and will notice if it gets better. Public transit is one of the least abstract political issues for New Yorkers, affecting where we can work, whether we can get there in time, and whether we can pick up our kids on time at the end of the day. Ridership has suffered since the pandemic. Sensationally reported crimes on the subway have contributed to anxiety about the system, which New York’s governor has idiotically played into by sending in the National Guard. Less dramatic but perhaps far more frustrating to most people, the service has deteriorated recently, with more delays and disruptions, and even derailments, which are quite scary. The political reception of congestion pricing, then, will be mostly determined by how tangibly it improves our transit system.

Of course, there’s no evading the biggest problem with congestion pricing, which is that people hate being forced to change cherished habits. New York City is a great place to implement this policy, since it’s already a terrible city for motorists, the transit system goes almost everywhere, and many New Yorkers already avoid driving. But those who are attached to their cars will be vocal in their objections. Such gripes will resonate and spread like a contagion if people don’t see the positive effects of congestion pricing right away.

That’s why immediate measures like Assemblyman Mamdani’s “Get Congestion Pricing Right” proposal—making more bus routes free and more frequent, before the revenue from congestion pricing even kicks in—are so crucial. Good environmental policy prods us to change our behavior while making our lives better at the same time. Congestion pricing will do this: It will obligate driving less by forcing cost-benefit analysis of our car trips, while also rewarding us by transforming urban life for the better—not just with cleaner air and better health, but by ensuring that we all waste less of our lives sitting in traffic. But the biggest benefit for most people will be the investments in our transit system, making a safer, more convenient, and joyful experience. If more of us start feeling anything close to the happiness that nurse felt on the Bx18A that day, congestion pricing will be a lasting political success.

Read the full story here.
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Living Near Polluted Missouri Creek as a Child Tied to Later Cancer Risk

By I. Edwards HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, July 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Folks who grew up near a polluted Missouri creek during the 1940s...

THURSDAY, July 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Folks who grew up near a polluted Missouri creek during the 1940s through 1960s may have higher odds for cancer now, new research shows.The study focused on Coldwater Creek in St. Louis County. The area was contaminated with radioactive waste from the U.S. government’s atomic bomb program during World War II.Back then, uranium was processed in St. Louis and nuclear waste was stored near the city’s airport. That waste leaked into Coldwater Creek, which runs through several residential neighborhoods.Researchers found that people who lived within one kilometer (0.62 miles) of the creek as kids had an 85% higher risk of developing certain cancers later in life compared to those who lived more than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) away.Those cancers include leukemia, thyroid cancer and breast cancer, which are known to be linked to radiation exposure.“The closer the childhood residence got to Coldwater Creek, the risk of cancer went up, and pretty dramatically," lead researcher Marc Weisskopf, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told The Wall Street Journal.For the study, Weisskopf’s team surveyed more than 4,200 adults who lived in the St. Louis area as children between 1958 and 1970.These people had donated their baby teeth years ago for radiation research. The new survey asked about cancer and other health issues.About 1 in 4 participants said they had been diagnosed with cancer. Risk dropped the farther someone lived from the creek as a child.Outside experts who reviewed the findings described them as concerning.“It emphasizes the importance of appreciating that radioactive waste is carcinogenic, particularly to children, and that we have to ensure that we have to clean up any remaining waste that’s out there,” Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiation risk expert at the University of California, San Francisco, told The Journal.In 2024, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began placing warning signs along parts of the creek that still have radioactive waste, The Journal reported.The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported in 2019 that contamination have raised the risk of leukemia and lung and bone cancer. Later exposures, starting in the 2000s, were linked to a slight increase in lung cancer for those who lived nearby.But the agency said it’s hard to link any one person’s cancer directly to radiation. Genetics, lifestyle and other factors could also play a role.In this study, radiation exposure wasn’t directly measured. Cancer cases were also self-reported, not confirmed by medical records. Weisskopf plans to measure radiation levels using the stored baby teeth in future research.Radiation exposure has long been tied to cancer, but this study is among the first to look at lower, long-term environmental exposure in the U.S., not just high levels from nuclear disasters or bombings."Radiation, when it’s given unnecessarily, only causes risk," Dr. Howard Sandler, chair of radiation oncology at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, told The Journal.SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Disposable Vapes Release Toxic Metals, Lab Study Says

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, July 11, 2025 (HealthDay News) — People using cheap disposable vape devices are likely inhaling high...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, July 11, 2025 (HealthDay News) — People using cheap disposable vape devices are likely inhaling high levels of toxic metals with every puff, a recent study says.After a few hundred puffs, some disposable vapes start releasing levels of toxic metals higher than found in either last-generation refillable e-cigarettes or traditional tobacco smokes, researchers reported in the journal ACS Central Science.These metals can increase a person’s risk of cancer, lung disease and nerve damage, researchers said.“Our study highlights the hidden risk of these new and popular disposable electronic cigarettes — with hazardous levels of neurotoxic lead and carcinogenic nickel and antimony — which stresses the need for urgency in enforcement,” senior researcher Brett Poulin, an assistant professor of environmental toxicology at the University of California-Davis, said in a news release.Earlier studies found that the heating elements of refillable vapes could release metals like chromium and nickel into the vapor people breathe.For this study, researchers analyzed seven disposable devices from three well-known vape brands: ELF Bars, Flum Pebbles and Esco Bar.Before they were even used, some of the devices had surprisingly high levels of lead and antimony, researchers reported. The lead appears to have come from leaded copper alloys used in the devices, which leach into the e-liquid.The team then activated the disposable vapes, creating between 500 and 1,500 puffs for each device, to see whether their heating elements would release more metals.Analysis of the vapor revealed that:Levels of metals like chromium, nickel and antimony increased as the number of puffs increased, while concentrations of zinc, copper and lead were elevated at the start. Most of the tested disposables released higher amounts of metals than older refillable vapes. One disposable released more lead during a day’s use than one would get from nearly 20 packs of tobacco cigarettes. Nickel in three devices and antimony in two devices exceeded cancer risk limits. Four devices had nickel and lead emissions that surpassed health risk thresholds for diseases other than cancer. These results reflect only three of the nearly 100 disposable vape brands now available on store shelves, researchers noted.“Coupling the high element exposures and health risks associated with these devices and their prevalent use among the underage population, there is an urgent need for regulators to investigate this issue further and exercise regulatory enforcement accordingly,” researchers wrote.SOURCES: American Chemical Society, news release, June 20, 2025; ACS Central Science, June 25, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Trying to Quit Smoking? These Expert-Backed Tips Can Help

By David Hill, MD, Chair, Board of Directors, American Lung Association HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, July 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) — According to...

THURSDAY, July 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) — According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2022, the majority of the 28.8 million U.S. adults who smoked cigarettes wanted to quit; approximately half had tried to quit, but fewer than 10% were successful.Many folks say quitting smoking was the hardest thing they have ever done. This includes people who have climbed mountains, corporate ladders, tackled childbirth and raised families.Successfully overcoming tobacco addiction is a process, and it takes time. It can’t be done at once. Individuals taught themselves how to smoke, vape or chew tobacco products and practiced for so long that the behavior became as automatic as breathing, eating or sleeping.Quitting, then, is a process of overcoming addiction and learned behaviors. Individuals must learn to manage nicotine addiction, unlearn their automatic behavior of tobacco use, and replace it with healthy new alternatives.Because tobacco dependence is a chronic relapsing condition, Freedom From Smoking® identifies quitting tobacco use and maintaining abstinence as a process in which a person may cycle through multiple periods of relapse and remission before experiencing long-term lifestyle and behavior change.The CDC suggests that it takes eight to 11 attempts before quitting permanently.It’s essential to understand three challenges associated with quitting and create a plan to address each with proven-effective strategies:1. Psychological Link of Nicotine Addiction Over time, using tobacco products becomes an automatic behavior that needs to be unlearned.  After quitting, emotions can overwhelm a person.  Grief can also play an important role in the quitting process.  Create support systems through counseling classes, and among family, friends and co-workers. Mark a calendar for every day you are tobacco-free and reward yourself for days you avoid use. Use positive self-talk when cravings arise, such as “the urge will pass whether I smoke or not” or “smoking is not an option for me.”2. Sociocultural Link of Nicotine AddictionCertain activities and environmental cues can trigger the urge to smoke. As people mature, social factors or cues play a role in continuing use.  People who use tobacco may be reluctant to give up those connections or routines.  Identify your triggers and use replacements such as cinnamon sticks, doodling on a notepad or finding another activity to keep your hands busy. Create change and break routine by using the 3 A’s — AVOID (the situation), ALTER (the situation) or ALTERNATIVE (substitute something else). Keep a quit kit/survival kit with you at all times with items you can use to replace tobacco product use when the urge comes.3. Biological (Physical) Link of Nicotine AddictionAddiction occurs when a substance — like nicotine, alcohol or cocaine — enters the brain and activates the brain’s receptors for that substance, producing pleasure.  When a person quits, the brain’s nicotine receptors activate, creating cravings and withdrawal symptoms.  Over time, the receptors become inactive, and the withdrawal symptoms and urges to use fade away. Use cessation medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (prescription or over-the-counter) in the proper doses for the full time period recommended by a clinician. Do not stop treatment early. Exercise alternative ways to release dopamine such as physical activity or listening to music.  Use stress management techniques, including deep breathing and relaxation exercises, daily if possible.Nearly 2 in 3 adults who have ever smoked cigarettes have successfully quit, according to the CDC You can, too! To learn more about strategies for countering the challenges associated with the three-link chain of nicotine addiction, visit Quit Smoking & Vaping | American Lung Association.Dr. David Hill is a member of the Lung Association's National Board of Directors and is the immediate past chair of the Northeast Regional Board of the American Lung Association. He serves on the Leadership Board of the American Lung Association in Connecticut and is a former chair of that board. He is a practicing pulmonary and critical care physician with Waterbury Pulmonary Associates and serves as their director of clinical research. He is an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, an assistant clinical professor at the Frank Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, and a clinical instructor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Lead Exposure Can Harm Kids' Memory, Study Says

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, July 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Even low levels of lead exposure can harm kids' working memory,...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, July 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Even low levels of lead exposure can harm kids' working memory, potentially affecting their education and development, according to a new study.Exposure to lead in the womb or during early childhood appears to increase kids' risk of memory decay, accelerating the rate at which they forget information, researchers reported July 9 in the journal Science Advances.“There may be no more important a trait than the ability to form memories. Memories define who we are and how we learn,” said senior researcher Dr. Robert Wright, chair of environmental medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.“This paper breaks new ground by showing how environmental chemicals can interfere with the rate of memory formation,” Wright said in a news release.For the study, researchers took blood lead measurements from the mothers of 576 children in Mexico during the second and third trimester of pregnancy. Later, the team took samples directly from the kids themselves, at ages 4 to 6.Between 6 and 8 years of age, the kids took a test called the delayed matching-to-sample task, or DMST, to measure their rate of forgetting.In the test, kids had to remember a simple shape for up to 32 seconds after it had been briefly shown to them, and then choose it from three offered options.The test lasted for 15 minutes, with correct responses rewarding the child with tokens that could be exchanged for a toy at the end of the experiment.“Children with higher levels of blood lead forgot the test stimulus faster than those with low blood lead levels,” Wright said.Researchers noted that the Mexican children in the study had higher median blood lead levels than those typically found in U.S. kids 6 to 10 years old – 1.7 Ug/dL versus 0.5 Ug/dL. (Median means half were higher, half were lower.)Children in Mexico are exposed to lead through commonly used lead-glazed ceramics used to cook, store and serve food, researchers said.However, the Mexican kids’ blood lead levels were still lower than the 3.5 Ug/dL level used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify kids in the United States with more lead exposure than others, researchers added.“In the U.S., the reduction of environmental exposures to lead, such as lead-based paint in homes, lead pipes, and lead in foods such as spices, is still of continued importance as even low levels of lead can have detrimental effects on children’s cognitive function and development,” researchers wrote in their paper.This study also shows that the DMST test can be used to help test the effect of other environmental hazards on kids’ memory, researchers said.“Children are exposed to many environmental chemicals, and this model provides a validated method to further assess the effect of additional environmental exposures, such as heavy metals, air pollution, or endocrine disruptors, on children’s working memory,” co-lead researcher Katherine Svensson, a postdoctoral fellow in environmental medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in a news release.SOURCES: Mount Sinai, news release, July 9, 2025; Science Advances, July 9, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Nearly Half of Americans Still Live With High Levels of Air Pollution, Posing Serious Health Risks, Report Finds

The most recent State of the Air report by the American Lung Association found that more than 150 million Americans breathe air with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution

Nearly Half of Americans Still Live With High Levels of Air Pollution, Posing Serious Health Risks, Report Finds The most recent State of the Air report by the American Lung Association found that more than 150 million Americans breathe air with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution Lillian Ali - Staff Contributor April 25, 2025 12:50 p.m. For 25 of the 26 years the American Lung Association has reported State of the Air, Los Angeles—pictured here in smog—has been declared the city with the worst ozone pollution in the United States. David Iliff via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 Since 2000, the American Lung Association has released an annual State of the Air report analyzing air quality data across the United States. This year’s report, released on Wednesday, found the highest number of people exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution in a decade. According to the findings, 156 million Americans—or 46 percent of the U.S. population—live with levels of particle or ozone pollution that received a failing grade. “Both these types of pollution cause people to die,” Mary Rice, a pulmonologist at Harvard University, tells NPR’s Alejandra Borunda. “They shorten life expectancy and drive increases in asthma rates.” Particle pollution, also called soot pollution, is made up of minuscule solid and liquid particles that hang in the air. They’re often emitted by fuel combustion, like diesel- and gasoline-powered cars or the burning of wood. Ozone pollution occurs when polluting gases are hit by sunlight, leading to a reaction that forms ozone smog. Breathing in ozone can irritate your lungs, causing shortness of breath, coughing or asthma attacks. The 2025 State of the Air report, which analyzed air quality data from 2021 to 2023, found 25 million more people breathing polluted air compared to the 2024 report. The authors link this rise to climate change. “There’s definitely a worsening trend that’s driven largely by climate change,” Katherine Pruitt, the lead author of the report and national senior director for policy at the American Lung Association, tells USA Today’s Ignacio Calderon. “Every year seems to be a bit hotter globally, resulting in more extreme weather events, more droughts, more extreme heat and more wildfires.” Those wildfires produce the sooty particles that contribute to particulate pollution, while extreme heat creates more favorable conditions for ozone formation, producing smog. While climate change is contributing to heavy air pollution, it used to be much worse. Smog has covered cities like Los Angeles since the early 20th century. At one point, these “hellish clouds” of smog were so thick that, in the middle of World War II, residents thought the city was under attack. The Optimist Club of Highland Park, a neighborhood in northeast Los Angleles, wore gas masks at a 1954 banquet to highlight air pollution in the city. Los Angeles Daily News via Wikimedia Commons under CC-BY 4.0 The passage of the Clean Air Act and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 marked a turning point in air quality, empowering the government to regulate pollution and promote public health. Now, six key air pollutants have dropped by about 80 percent since the law’s passage, according to this year’s report. But some researchers see climate change as halting—or even reversing—this improvement. “Since the act passed, the air pollution has gone down overall,” Laura Kate Bender, an assistant vice president at the American Lung Association, tells CBS News’ Kiki Intarasuwan. “The challenge is that over the last few years, we’re starting to see it tick back up again, and that’s because of climate change, in part.” At the same time, federal action against climate change appears to be slowing. On March 12, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced significant rollbacks and re-evaluations, declaring it “the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen.” Zeldin argued that his deregulation will drive “a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” Included in Zeldin’s push for deregulation is a re-evaluation of Biden-era air quality standards, including those for particulate pollution and greenhouse gases. The EPA provided a list of 31 regulations it plans to scale back or eliminate, including limits on air pollution, mercury emissions and vehicles. This week, the EPA sent termination notices to nearly 200 employees at the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. “Unfortunately, we see that everything that makes our air quality better is at risk,” Kate Bender tells CBS News, citing the regulation rollbacks and cuts to staff and funding at the EPA. “If we see all those cuts become reality, it’s gonna have a real impact on people’s health by making the air they breathe dirtier.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

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