Latest news with #non-smokers
South China Morning Post
10-07-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Smoking on planes has been banned for years. So why are there still ashtrays?
In the beginning, there were no separate smoking sections because everybody smoked everywhere. And I mean everywhere: with kids in the car, in cinemas, buses, trains, McDonald's (and everyone else's) restaurants, maternity wards, doctors' clinics, supermarkets, lifts, bathrooms, classrooms and aeroplanes. Pretty much the only place you couldn't smoke was at the petrol pump. Even kids like me got in the act, 'smoking' ever-popular candy cigarettes. (It made me look cool and grown-up, just like Dad. And Steve McQueen!) Then slowly, sympathy for long-suffering non-smokers drove momentum for areas set apart for smokers. Cinemas reserved the balcony or side sections, their smoke swirling in the light of the projector. My high school even had a students' smoking section! 'Smoking or non?' became the standard greeting when you entered a restaurant. (But as George Carlin said, 'Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?') Passengers light up on a Transocean Air Lines Boeing 377 Stratocruiser in the mid-1950s. And then, radically, in 1971, courting great controversy, United Airlines created the first smoking section on planes. The tobacco industry was livid. Smokers marginalised! A publicity exercise! What a concept – a loosely curtained-off ghetto at the rear of the plane was somehow supposed to hermetically protect the non-smokers and seal off the smokers and their haze from all but the back few rows of the plane. To be fair, to a certain extent, it worked – most of the smog stayed at the back, leaving only the smokers back there gasping for breath. Anyway, an improvement. I remember well that there was a hack: to avoid getting stuck in the noxious smoking section, nicotine addicts would book non-smoking seats (so they wouldn't have to inhale everyone else's cigarettes through the entire flight). Then when they were finally desperate for a smoke, they'd simply do a 'Sorry, Babe, back in a minute', slink back to the smoking section and slip through the curtains. They'd light up and slouch there guiltily in the aisle, huffing down a fag before returning to the relative purity of the non-smoking section. In 1990, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific was the first airline in Asia to introduce non-smoking flights. Photo: SCMP Archives
Daily Mail
19-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
The eight things vaping's doing to your body that you didn't realise: After woman dies from cancer caused by vapes, experts reveal the shocking truth that will horrify millions
At least five million people in Britain vape on a regular basis – and roughly one million of them have never been smokers. E-cigarettes are more popular than ever before not just among tobacco users looking to quit but also non-smokers who want the buzz of a nicotine hit, without the deadly side-effects of toxins in cigarettes.
CBS News
09-05-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Dad able to look to future after biomarker testing, targeted drug therapy treat his Stage 4 cancer
Dad of 2 able to look to the future after targeted drug therapy treats Stage 4 lung cancer Dad of 2 able to look to the future after targeted drug therapy treats Stage 4 lung cancer Dad of 2 able to look to the future after targeted drug therapy treats Stage 4 lung cancer These days, Michael Hu is able to look to the future thanks to advances in lung cancer research and treatment. Three years ago, it was a different story. The father of two was 43 years old with a vibrant life and family when he felt something was wrong. "Just really sharp pain in my side. I couldn't take a regular breath in without it hurting," he said. A trip to the emergency room led to a series of tests and a startling discovery. "They found lesions in the background of my liver and eventually in other parts of my body," Hu said. It was Stage 4 cancer — the most advanced stage of the disease — in his liver, lungs, pancreas, bones and brain. It was later determined to be lung cancer, though Hu isn't a smoker. "You're in this shock of where your world falls apart, and you're trying to just put things back together," Hu said. Dr. Chris D'Avella, a thoracic medical oncologist at Penn Medicine, examined Hu during that first ER visit. Today, D'Avella still oversees Hu's care. "We have had a rise in non-smoking-related lung cancers. And what we know is that there are certain targetable mutations, so mutations in the tumor that drive its growth," D'Avella said. Hu's immediate thought after hearing his diagnosis was his young kids. "That was probably the first thing that came to my mind," he said. "Not even me being sick, but what it means for my family." Thankfully, breakthroughs in research, advanced biomarker testing and sequencing led to targeted drug therapy that proved effective. "The thing that's been game-changing is that the amount of people that have shrinkage with the drug can be close to 80-90%," D'Avella said. Today, despite some setbacks, Hu is still able to look forward to the future. He continues advocating for more research and resources for lung cancer treatment. "Knowing that there's so much more on the horizon, it's exciting, but also for a patient like myself, it can't come fast enough," he said. On Saturday, Hu will take part in the American Lung Association's Lung Force Walk at the Philadelphia Zoo. He said he walks with hope that one day, a cancer diagnosis "will be met with relief, knowing effective treatments are available." Learn more about the Lung Force Walk and get involved at
