Data recently published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that the smoking rate among teenagers has reached a plateau after falling for three consecutive years.

The CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which tracks the rate of smoking, drinking, drug use, and other risky behaviors among teenagers, showed that the number of teens who smoke cigarettes rose from 21.9% in 2003 to 23% in 2005, but then began to fall, reaching 20% in 2007. The decline is largely attributed to increased attention to the problem, which resulted in mandatory anti-smoking advertisements by tobacco companies and a variety of anti-smoking programs and materials, aimed at young people, produced by the CDC and other federal agencies.

The recent plateau coincides with both an increase in yearly pro-tobacco advertising from cigarette companies (which increased by almost a billion dollars per year from 1998 through 2005) along with a 28% decline in the amount of money spent by states on anti-smoking campaigns.

Terry Pechacek, a CDC spokeswoman, says, "This is the most dramatic indication that the great progress we're making has stalled," and it "has very negative long-term implications."

Smoking, along with obesity, is a leading preventable cause of hypertension, especially in young adults.

In a front page story, the Wall Street Journal notes a major decline in the number of new drugs being produced by large pharmaceutical companies. Industry spokesmen confirm that the number of "large scale projects" has been cut dramatically in recent months because of rising scrutiny from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulators.

In the aftermath of several headline grabbing medication related stories - some invovling numerous patient deaths - and incidents of medication contamination, the agency has taken steps to step up how strictly it scrutinizes new drug candidates.

One drug company CEO notes that the FDAs increasing focus on safety and decreasing tolerance of side effects has dramatically cut the odds that many large drug projects will produce any products that ultimately make it to market. As a result, those projects have been halted.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research "denies that the agency has become 'more conservative' about drug safety," but acknowledges that last year, "the FDA approved just 19 new medicines, the fewest in 24 years, and announced about 75 new or revised 'black-box' warnings about potential side effects,...twice the number in 2004."