Day: May 3, 2013

Smoking poses greater cancer risk to women

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Smoking may pose a bigger health threat to women than men, say researchers.

Women who smoke have a higher risk of cancer than men, Norwegian investigators found.

They looked at the medical records of 600,000 patients and discovered the bowel cancer risk linked to smoking was twice as high in women than men…Female smokers had a 19% increased risk of the disease while male smokers had a 9% increased risk…

In the study, nearly 4,000 of the participants developed bowel cancer. Women who started smoking when they were 16 or younger and those who had smoked for decades were at substantially increased risk of bowel cancer.

The findings suggest that women may be biologically more vulnerable to the toxic effects of tobacco smoke.

Experts already know that women who start smoking increase their risk of a heart attack by more than men who take up the habit, although it is not clear why…

Although smoking rates have been falling among both sexes, the decline has been less rapid in women…

According to research in more than one million women, those who give up smoking by the age of 30 will almost completely avoid the risks of dying early from tobacco-related diseases.

Sarah Williams of Cancer Research UK said…”For men and women, the evidence is clear – being a non-smoker means you’re less likely to develop cancer, heart disease, lung disease and many other serious illnesses.”

That last sentence says it all.

My sister and I started smoking when she was 10, I was 12. We wanted to be like our parents. I was the only one who quit. You have to break the cultural chain if you’re ever going to beat the thugs who profit from selling addiction.

Did you know – that Ted Cruz is a dirty syrup-guzzler?

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Jon Stewart rocks!

It will be nothing but fun to watch the Birthers who ran all their Trumped-up blather over a non-white Democrat born in Hawaii running for president. Even worse – winning.

Now, they get to flip-flop when the same silly questions on presidential eligibility are asked of their favorite white Republican Kool Aid Party Kandidate – born in Calgary.

California woman busted after planting poisoned juice at Starbucks

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A 50-year-old pharmacist arrested Monday after police say she filled two bottles of orange juice with what appeared to be rubbing alcohol at a San Jose Starbucks will be released, most likely Thursday evening, until lab tests return confirming what was actually inside the bottles, prosecutors said.

Ramineh Behbehanian of San Jose was booked on an attempted murder charge because the orange juice contained what police said were lethal quantities of isopropyl alcohol.

But her scheduled court date of Thursday was postponed, because prosecutors did not yet have enough information to charge her.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney could still charge her, but prosecutors won’t know with what until the lab results of the orange juice come back…

San Jose police are still not sure why she would have allegedly mixed rubbing alcohol with some orange juice Monday afternoon, left the bottles in the refrigerated section alongside some yogurt and milk, and left the Snell Avenue Starbucks store about 3:30 p.m.

An alert customer standing behind her in line spotted her taking out her own bottles of juice from a green Starbucks bag, and put them in the refrigerator section. He also noticed a toxic smell. He told management. The woman might have felt under suspicion, police said, but a Starbucks employee got her license plate.

The San Jose Fire Department responded to the scene, retrieved the bottles and tested the contents with hazardous materials equipment. It turned out, the bottles were filled with orange juice and rubbing alcohol.

A Starbucks spokesperson told NBC Bay Area that the company destroyed all the other juices in the Snell Avenue store out of an abundance of caution and had all other stores in Bay Area check their juice seals…All checked out OK.

Yes – the world has too many loonies.

Fortunately, there is a modicum of bright, nosy people who notice potentially dangerous crap like this. Sometimes. There will be some privacy freaks who don’t want someone noticing what anyone else is about. That’s understandable to a certain extent. But, protecting yourself and other folks from someone who may think they have a terrific reason for killing innocent folks – I think is admirable.

Too bad there wasn’t someone like the Starbucks barista or the customer in that line who noticed Behbehanian adding tainted juice bottles to the cooler – someone paying attention to a couple of murderers in Massachusetts before they completed their bomb run.

And, yes – it brings up the inevitable question of surveillance in public areas. One I revisit from time to time though my response remains the same. Good tech makes thorough surveillance more possible every year, more affordable, more capable. The same questions about Big Brother have to be confronted. And someone must watch the watchers. Not just the troops on duty, the bureaucrats in charge. Because abuse of surveillance systems are always a legitimate political concern.