• Michael McCarthy reports on a new $13.4m White House initiative to tackle the growing heroin epidemic in the USA. Around half will go to bolstering law enforcement efforts, with the remainder spent on prevention and a new “heroin response strategy” in five of the hardest hit regions.

 

 

• Ingrid Torjesen writes in a news piece about Public Health England’s calls for the NHS to use electronic cigarettes as part of their efforts to help smokers quit. The PHE’s chair of health and wellbeing, Kevin Fenton, said that the products should be considered for those who “may find it difficult to quit using traditional means.”

 

 

• Two large cohort studies may shed new light on the relationship between light or moderate drinking and cancer, J Rehm claims in an editorial. The study, from the United States, found that light to moderate drinking in women was associated with an increased risk of cancers with an established link to alcohol consumption.

 

 

Joe Knight is an undergraduate, Wadham College, Oxford.