About one in four premature deaths worldwide can be traced to five preventable health factors -- alcohol use, poor childhood nutrition, unsafe sex, bad sanitation and hygiene, and high blood pressure -- according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has fired his drug czar after David Nutt said that LSD and ecstasy are less dangerous drugs than alcohol or tobacco.

Several recent studies have found that smoking cigarettes may trigger rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or hinder the treatment of RA.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and academic researchers are examining whether smokeless-tobacco products can potentially be viewed as a safer alternative to smoking.

Young smokers suffer reduced cardiovascular function even if they smoke only a few cigarettes per day, according to research from Stella Daskalopoulou at the McGill University Health Center.

The federal government wants to leverage interest and investment in vaccine development to get pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that could "inoculate" people against addiction to cocaine, nicotine, and other substances.