HealthDay (3/4, Thompson) reports that a review published online March 3 in the journal Pediatrics suggests that 7.2 “percent of children worldwide have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD).” The review’s conclusion is based upon “data from 175 prior studies conducted over” 36 years, encompassing some “one million” North American and European youngsters. Notably, the review’s “estimate comes in lower than the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reports that 11 percent of US school-age children had been diagnosed with AD/HD by 2011.”

Related Links:

— “About 7 Percent of Kids Worldwide Have ADHD: Study,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, March 3, 2015.

The Chicago Tribune (2/26) provides an overview of the status of smoking and efforts to control the habit in the US, noting that more than 50 years after the first US surgeon general’s report highlighting its dangers, “smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death” in the US. The article notes that those “who continue to smoke may subject themselves to at least 11 kinds of cancer, numerous other diseases and a lower quality of life.” The paper notes that even with smoking rates “half of the population percentage of what they were in 1964, the American Lung Association says that more than 43 million Americans, or one in five people in the U.S., still smoke.”

Related Links:

— “The 50-year war on smoking is far from won,” Barbara Sadick, Chicago Tribune, February 26, 2015. (Registration Required — free for five articles)

The Washington Post (2/26) reports in its “Wonkblog” that two-thirds of smokers “will die early from” cigarette-related diseases, “unless they choose to kick the habit,” citing new research from Australia published in BMC medicine. The study of more than 200,000 people, unveiled this week, “found about 67 percent of smokers perished from smoking-related illness.” The rate, according to the Post, “is higher than doctors previously estimated.”

Related Links:

— “The terrifying rate at which smokers die from smoking,” Danielle Paquette, Washington Post, February 26, 2015.

The Hill (2/27, Sullivan) reports that that earlier this week, “Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.)…outlined plans to introduce a pair of mental health reform bills next month, amid a push that began in the wake of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.” According to the Hill, “Rep. Murphy, a longtime champion of mental health reform, plans to reintroduce a version of a bill he pushed in the last Congress, he said at a mental health event hosted by The Hill.” Meanwhile, “Sen. Murphy said he would introduce a bill that has ‘some differences’ but is ‘substantially similar’ in the Senate around the same time.”

Related Links:

— “Lawmakers to ramp up mental health push,” Peter Sullivan, The Hill, February 26, 2015.

The AP (2/25) reports the case of Eddie Ray Routh, the former Marine convicted of killing “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle and another man, “illustrates the difficulty of succeeding with” mental illness defenses. One factor is that jurors don’t know that a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity means the defendant will be sent to a mental hospital for life, unless “the state could no longer establish that he had a severe mental illness and was likely to harm another person if he didn’t receive inpatient treatment.”

Related Links:

— “Experts: Insanity case as in ‘American Sniper’ hard to win,” Associated Press, Washington Post, February 25, 2015.