Hookah smoking delivers carcinogens and carbon monoxide

Along with nicotine, user gets toxic substances from water pipes

By Nathan Seppa

Web edition: April 26, 2013

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SMOKE IN THE AIR

Compared with smoking cigarettes, using a hookah (shown) sends more carbon monoxide and carcinogens into a smoker?s body.

Credit: Aptyp_koK/Shutterstock

The tobacco and fruit mixture smoked in public hookah bars might be considerably more dangerous than its pleasant scent would suggest. An analysis of people who smoked from water pipes three times a day finds that the pipes deliver more carbon monoxide and benzene, a carcinogen, than does smoking half a pack of cigarettes daily.

In an upcoming issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers document those and several other cancer-causing compounds that showed up in urine tests of the water-pipe smokers. The research calls into question a common assumption: that hookahs are safe.

?This is a great addition to the literature,? says Thomas Eissenberg, a psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He and his colleagues had previous found toxic substances in hookah smoke. The new paper extends his findings by detecting carcinogens and other bad actors in water-pipe smokers themselves, he says.

Hookah smoking goes back hundreds of years in India, the Middle East and North Africa, but it is newer in parts of Europe and North America. The substances heated in a hookah vary. In the study, researchers used pastes chosen by the participants that were 5 to 10 percent tobacco combined with honey, molasses and bits of fruit. This paste goes in the bowl of the pipe, which is covered with a perforated piece of aluminum foil and topped with a burning piece of charcoal, says study coauthor Peyton Jacob III, a research chemist at the University of California, San Francisco. The smoker then inhales.

In the new study, 13 healthy volunteers -- all smokers who used both cigarettes and hookahs -- smoked only a hookah for four days and then, after a week with no restrictions, only cigarettes. The volunteers averaged three water pipe sessions or 11 cigarettes per day.

Urine tests revealed that the volunteers had higher benzene levels when smoking hookahs than when smoking cigarettes. Benzene inhalation is associated with leukemia and lung cancer. The volunteers? tests also showed higher levels of pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon? or PAH, when smoking the hookah. Similar amounts of the probable human carcinogen acrylamide and the PAH phenanthrene showed up during cigarette or hookah smoking. Exposure to PAHs is linked to cancer and immune problems (SN: 3/23/13, p. 19).

Using breath tests, the researchers found that levels of carbon monoxide, a poisonous, odorless gas, were 2.5 times greater in volunteers after the water-pipe sessions than after cigarette smoking. The volunteers? blood samples while smoking the water pipe showed about half as much nicotine as when smoking cigarettes, but researchers estimated that the level was enough to be addictive.

Carbon monoxide and PAHs have been traced to burning charcoal, Eissenberg says. The contributions from the incompletely combusted paste are less clear.

Water-pipe smoking delivers more smoke per puff, Eissenberg says, because the taste is sweet, the smoke is cooled, and inhaling is easier when a smoker doesn?t have to drag air through a filter or tightly packed cigarette. A 2004 study done in an upper class neighborhood in Beirut found that people take 50 to 200 puffs during a water-pipe smoking session, which lasted 20 to 80 minutes. A cigarette smoker takes eight to 12 during an average smoke, the research found.

In the U.S., three in 10 university students have tried a hookah, Eissenberg and colleagues reported in a 2008 survey. Despite the apparent risks, Eissenberg says, hookah pipes and packages of hookah paste carry no regulatory warnings.

?Many water-pipe smokers tell me they know cigarettes are dangerous,? he says. ?It?s written on the pack. They say, ?I haven?t heard anything about water pipe smoking. It must be safe.? ?

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Suggested Reading

N. Seppa. Tracing pollution links to asthma, allergy. Science News. Volume 183, March 23, 2013, p. 19. [Go to]

B. Primack et al. Water-pipe tobacco smoking among middle and high school students in Arizona. NeoReviews. Vol. 123, Feb. 1, 2009, p. e282.?doi: 10.1542/peds.2008-1663. [Go to]

B. Primack et al. Prevalence of and associations with waterpipe tobacco smoking among U.S. university students. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. Volume 36, August 2008, p. 81. doi: 10.1007/s12160-008-9047-6. [Go to]

W. Maziak et al. Tobacco smoking using a waterpipe: a re-emerging strain in a global epidemic. Tobacco Control. Volume 13, December 2004, p. 327. doi:10.1136/tc.2004.008169. [Go to]

World Health Organization, ?Waterpipe Tobacco Smoking: Health Effects, Research Needs and Recommended Actions by Regulators.? [Go to]

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349987/title/Hookah_smoking_delivers_carcinogens_and_carbon_monoxide

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Dems cave on FAA sequester, pass ?Reducing Flight Delays Act? (Michellemalkin)

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Senate passes bill to end air traffic control furloughs

By Richard Cowan and Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate moved quickly late on Thursday to end air traffic controller furloughs that were causing widespread airline flight delays related to last month's automatic federal spending cuts.

Without any debate, the Senate unanimously passed legislation giving the Department of Transportation flexibility to use unspent funds to cover the costs of air traffic controllers and other essential employees at the Federal Aviation Administration.

The House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the measure, could take it up on Friday, capping a feverish effort by Congress to end the flight delays that were snarling traffic at major U.S. airports and angering travelers.

Some Senate aides said the measure would also give the FAA flexibility to keep open nearly 150 "contract towers" at smaller airports that are staffed by non-FAA employees who help control takeoffs and landings.

Explicit language to keep open those towers was not included in the measure, however, according to the aides, and it was not clear how the agency would handle the matter.

"I'm delighted that the Senate has just passed a bipartisan bill to resolve a serious problem confronting the American traveling public and our economy," said Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of a handful of senators who wrote the legislation.

The bill moved with lightning speed in the Senate where legislation often bogs down for weeks or months. It was passed after a day of furious negotiations between lawmakers and the Obama administration.

The bill, if passed by the House, would close another chapter in a series of Washington battles over budget and taxes that have been waged since 2011.

The cause of the air traffic controller furloughs was the controversial "sequestration" that took effect on March 1, requiring across-the-board spending cuts among most federal agencies. With those cuts starting to bite, a public backlash prompted Congress to reconsider, and fully fund high-profile FAA operations.

Lawmakers are eager to fix the air travel problem before they head out of town for next week's congressional recess. They are concerned about deepening public resentment over the delays caused by the furloughs of controllers.

Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who also negotiated the legislation, applauded its quick passage, but added, "It does nothing for other essential government operations and employees that also desperately need relief."

ANGRY TRAVELERS

Airline passengers have grown increasingly irritated over the past week with delays at major hubs like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Some have reported delays of several hours in takeoff times and planes being put in holding patterns in the air. Many pilots blame furloughs for landing delays.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said on Thursday that many of the 1,978 controller trainees were now working full shifts by themselves to help cover staffing shortages.

Airline executives had ratcheted up their complaints. "This is government not working - capital letters, exclamation point - when we're sitting here holding the traveling public hostage in the midst of sequestration," JetBlue Chief Executive Dave Barger said on a conference call on Thursday.

The FAA has said it had no alternative to furloughing controllers this week after Congress failed to come up with a budget deal that would have averted the $85 billion in across-the-board federal spending cuts between March 1 and September 30.

At the same time, the FAA has emphasized that passenger safety is not at risk. Airlines for America, the trade organization for U.S. airlines, also said on Thursday the furloughs had not created a safety issue.

While Republicans joined the effort for a quick fix, many were skeptical about whether the White House and FAA were taking advantage of flexibility they already had.

Republicans have accused the Obama administration of maximizing the disruptions to try to shift budget blame on Republicans, an allegation the administration has denied. Republicans have created a Twitter hashtag, #Obamaflightdelays, for people to complain about the delays.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, a California Republican, and House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, a Pennsylvania Republican, sent a letter on Thursday to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking for internal documents discussing budget flexibilities. The Department of Transportation said it was reviewing the request.

But a congressional aide involved in the original automatic spending cut legislation that was enacted in August 2011 told Reuters the administration could not under current law shift money from outside accounts to fund the air traffic controller account.

SEQUESTRATION FALLOUT

Without the legislation, the FAA said it would have to furlough 47,000 employees for up to 11 days through September 30 in order to save $637 million that is required by the sequestration.

Of those 47,000 workers, almost 15,000 are full-time air traffic controllers or trainees.

The FAA issued an update that said more than 863 delays in the system on Wednesday were attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furloughs.

An additional 2,132 delays were attributed to weather and other factors, the FAA said. The agency said it would work with airlines to minimize delays.

Airlines, many of which are reporting earnings this week, have pushed the government to quickly ease the flight delays caused by the furloughs.

Jeff Smisek, chairman and chief executive of United Continental Holdings Inc, said his company's network operations center was working around the clock to minimize the impact of fewer controllers.

"We are disappointed that the FAA chose this path, that maximizes customer disruptions and damage to airlines instead of choosing a less disruptive method to comply with the budget obligations," Smisek said on a conference call.

The proposal being weighed would not spare other agencies and federal programs from the across-the-board reductions.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Doug Palmer, Thomas Ferraro, David Lawder, Karen Jacobs and Nivedita Bhattacharjee; Writing by Karey Van Hall; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congress-moving-toward-quick-fix-flight-delays-000258160.html

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Watch Ellen DeGeneres Meet Her 'SNL' Impersonator

If you're a fan of Kate McKinnon's impression of Ellen DeGeneres on Saturday Night Live -- and boy, is it spot on! -- then you'll love this. On yesterday's Ellen, McKinnon gamely accepted DeGeneres' offer to impersonate her right there on the show. Watch below, as the jaunty pair squirm in their seats and dance through the audience together:

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/snl-star-kate-mckinnon-impersonates-ellen-degeneres-ellen-show/1-a-534328?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Asnl-star-kate-mckinnon-impersonates-ellen-degeneres-ellen-show-534328

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Higher fares help Southwest Airlines' profit

This March 13, 2010 photo, shows a Southwest Airlines plane in Burbank, Calif. Southwest Airlines Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market open on Thursday, April 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

This March 13, 2010 photo, shows a Southwest Airlines plane in Burbank, Calif. Southwest Airlines Co. reports quarterly financial results before the market open on Thursday, April 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

DALLAS (AP) ? Higher fares helped Southwest Airlines make more money than Wall Street expected in the first quarter, but the company said Thursday that automatic federal spending cuts could hurt revenue in April.

The average passenger fare on Southwest is now more than $150 one-way, 4 percent higher than a year ago.

The airline also said that a new policy on no-shows will start next month.

Southwest's first-quarter net income fell 40 percent to $59 million, or 8 cents per share. That's down from earnings of $98 million, or 13 cents per share, a year ago.

Without gains from fuel-hedging contracts, Southwest would have earned 7 cents per share, topping analysts' forecast of 2 cents per share.

Revenue totaled $4.08 billion, up 2 percent from a year ago. Analysts expected $4.07 billion, according to FactSet.

Southwest shares rose 27 cents, or 2 percent, to $13.69 in pre-market trading.

Southwest said that revenue was weaker than expected in March and so far in April. Automatic budget cuts that went into effect in March have caused federal agencies to cut back on travel. The company said that it's "cautious" because of the potential effect of those cuts, but that recent bookings for May and June are "solid."

Other airlines have also seen damage from the federal spending cuts. US Airways said this week that revenue from government workers plunged 37 percent in March. Government travel counts for 3 percent of US Airways' revenue.

At Southwest, lower fuel prices have offset the slump in revenue in April. Fuel is the airline's biggest expense. It's first-quarter fuel bill fell 3.5 percent compared with the same period last year, to $1.46 billion.

Southwest estimated its second-quarter fuel cost at $3 to $3.05 per gallon, less than a year ago and below its forecast for 2013.

Southwest also unveiled details of a new no-show policy. The airline will start dinging some customers who fail to cancel their reservations and then don't show up for the flight. Beginning with reservations made on or after May 10, no-shows will lose the value of the unused part of their itinerary and the rest of the reservation will be canceled.

The change will cover people who buy cheaper, nonrefundable tickets that the airline calls Wanna Get Away and Ding fares.

Unlike most airlines, Southwest doesn't charge a fee to change a ticket, and it lets customers apply the amount of unused tickets to new bookings. But the airline believes that the policy results in seats going unsold when passengers fail to show up.

Southwest doesn't charge for the first two checked bags, but it has added and increased other fees such as priority boarding recently.

"We are pleased with the early results from revenue initiatives implemented in first quarter 2013 and are excited about the incremental benefit expected for future periods," CEO Gary Kelly said in a statement.

The average fare on Southwest rose to $152.29. It was $146.72 a year ago.

.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-25-Earns-Southwest/id-5683a104d1cc4136ae03c5c05af988f2

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US jobless claims data shore up markets

LONDON (AP) ? Solid weekly U.S. jobless claims figures shored up markets Thursday in the run-up to the first estimate of the country's first-quarter economic growth.

This week economic data have largely disappointed expectations. However, the 16,000 fall in weekly claims to 339,000 augurs well for next week's nonfarm payrolls report for April. Before then, investors will focus on Friday's release of GDP growth during the first three months of the year.

Growth is expected to come in at an annualized rate a little above 3 percent, way up from the previous quarter's 0.4 percent.

Michael Hewson, senior analyst at CMC Markets, said the risk is that investors are setting themselves up for "significant disappointment" if the growth numbers are low.

"Given the weakness of recent data it is somewhat surprising that this 3.1 percent estimate hasn't been revised lower, especially in light of the poor data seen in March, from employment, retail sales, existing home sales and durable goods yesterday," Hewson said.

Following the claims figures, European markets were trading more or less where they were before whereas Wall Street opened solidly.

In Europe, Germany's DAX rose 0.6 percent to 7,805, while the CAC-40 fell 0.2 percent to 3,835. Spain's IBEX underperformed all others, trading 0.8 percent lower after figures showed the unemployment rate climbed to a record high of 27.2 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2013.

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was flat at 6,433 even though official figures showed the country's economy grew by a greater than anticipated quarterly rate of 0.3 percent in the first three months of the year.

Many in the markets were predicting that Britain would sink into its third recession in less than five years. But the rise eased expectations that the Bank of England will soon announce another big monetary stimulus. That gave the British pound a lift ? it was trading 1.3 percent higher at $1.5466 and near two-month highs.

Sentiment has held up this week largely because investors think the world's major central banks will continue with their super-easy monetary policies. That's increasingly the case in Europe, where investors think the European Central Bank will likely cut interest rates at its policy meeting next Thursday.

"The case for an ECB rate cut at the 2 May policy meeting is quite strong," said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.

Currency markets elsewhere were unspectacular, with the euro down 0.1 percent at $1.3009 and the dollar 0.1 percent lower at 99.37 yen.

Earlier in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.6 percent to close at 13,926.08 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1 percent to 22,401.24. South Korea's Kospi added 0.8 percent to 1,951.60.

Oil prices were fairly flat too after recovering above $90 a barrel on Wednesday ? the benchmark rate was down 15 cents at $91.27 a barrel.

____

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-jobless-claims-data-shore-markets-145707501--finance.html

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Lorenzo Fertitta says women?s groups are being used as a pawn by unions in fight for MMA in NY

While on Laurence Holmes podcast on the Score on Monday night, he asked me how it was being a woman covering such a male-dominant sport as mixed martial arts. I answered that while there were some problems and I did come up against some jerks from time to time, MMA was fantastic to me. I pointed out that the few jerks were rarely fighters.

So imagine my surprise when I heard from women's groups that I've long respected that the sport I cover is full of negative attitudes against women. As New York debates legislation sanctioning MMA, women's groups have protested because of the "violent nature of MMA."

"Due to the violent nature of mixed martial arts and the surprisingly high incidence of unchallenged sexism and misogyny displayed by certain fighters, commentators and other public figures associated with this sport, the prospect of legalization in New York state raises legitimate concerns about the increased exposure of our children to this new and potentially very negative influence," stated a bill introduced Friday by state Sen. Liz Krueger, who represents much of Manhattan's east side.

Have MMA figures said and done terribly misogynistic things? Absolutely. But so have NFL players. So have NHL players. Both football and hockey also feature violent collisions and catastrophic injuries. Where are the protests to evict the Buffalo Bills or New York Rangers from the state?

UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, who has been lobbying for MMA's sanctioning in New York for years, thinks that these women's groups are being used as a pawn by the Culinary Union.

?It?s actually kind of sad,? Fertitta said. ?These women?s organizations and women?s groups stand for great things ? yet they are being used as a pawn by the Culinary Union.?

The union has a beef with Fertitta and his brother Frank because they own the largest non-union casinos in Las Vegas. The union has contacted women's groups to bring their attention MMA's rise and possible sanctioning in New York. But what would make more sense for the union to focus on is that fighters don't have a collective bargaining agreement and aren't unionized.

Krueger and others have pointed to links between MMA and violence when no such link has been found. There is also no discussion of how MMA has empowered women as fighters, officials, media and fans, or how women have learned self defense techniques at MMA gyms across the country. Invicta FC, a promotion run by a woman that features women's bouts, must have escaped their view.

There are real problems facing women. Sexual violence, domestic abuse, unequal pay, unequal treatment in the workplace, sexual harassment, and many other serious issues face women every day. Let's focus on how we should solve those real issues, and not a sport that has no proven link to any of these problems.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/lorenzo-fertitta-says-women-groups-being-used-pawn-224954336--mma.html

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