Britain Supports E-Cigarettes, US Considers Ban

The United States and Britain have very different views on e-cigarettes.

American public health officials are warning of the dangers of vaping(吸电子烟)among young people. But, British officials consider electronic cigarettes to be a powerful tool for people trying to quit smoking.

Britain’s Royal College of Physicians tells doctors to promote e-cigarettes “as widely as possible” for patients trying to give up cigarettes. And Public Health England says vaping is much less dangerous than smoking.

In the United States, hundreds of people who vape have been sickened by a mysterious lung illness. Many of them are teenagers.

In answer, the federal government and some states have recently taken steps to ban the flavored e-cigarettes that appeal to young people.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends that people consider not using e-cigarettes.

Dr. John Britton is director of the U.K. Center for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies at the University of Nottingham. He said the U.S. reaction is “complete madness.” Dr. Britton added, “The reality with smoking is, if you tell people to stop vaping, they will go back to tobacco and tobacco kills.”

Around the world, countries have different views on vaping. More than 30 nations ban e-cigarettes completely. Many European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Germany and Italy, consider e-cigarettes the same as tobacco products and control the sales of them.

However, France, just like Britain, hardly sets limits on the sales of e-cigarettes. In those countries, e-cigarettes are sold as usual consumer products.

E-cigarettes arrived in the United States in 2007 and have been mostly unregulated. Three years ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) got the power to oversee their use. Black market, illegal sales of e-cigarettes have grown quickly.

The FDA’s acting commissioner, Dr. Ned Sharpless, recently testified(作证)before Congress.

Several lawmakers suggested complete removal of e-cigarettes from the market.

“We do not consider these products safe, we think they have harm,” Dr. Sharpless said. “We do not think really anyone should be using them other than people using them in place of smoking regular tobacco cigarettes. “

How do e-cigarettes work? The vaping devices usually heat a solution(溶液)containing nicotine into a vapor, which is inhaled. The amount of nicotine differs widely. Some countries restrict the amount. There is no limit in the United States. But the widespread use of vaping devices among young people brought warnings from health officials. They said nicotine harms a teenager’s still-developing brain.

“What’s right for England might not be right for the U.S.,” said Ryan Kennedy. He is with the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The CDC said that the mysterious lung illness appears to be in connection with THC vaping products. THC is a chemical compound that gives marijuana its high.

The agency said many of the 800 people who got sick reported vaping THC. It said it still needed more information to know whether a single product, substance or brand is responsible. Some researchers have blamed an ingredient used in vaping oils, especially in black market products.

1. 时间和地点；

2. 培训内容（观看关于意外受伤的短片，专家教授急救技能等）；

3. 培训课的意义。

注意：1. 词数80左右；

2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

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【1】正是那位作家对他说的一番话鼓励了他投身于写作。（It）

【2】这个国家经常陷入战乱，这就是它极度贫困的原因。（account）

【3】一个刚从大学毕业的没有实践经验的年轻人是很难找到一个高薪职位的。（difficulty）

【4】这位年轻人非常激动，他都不知道如何表达对这些援救人员给予他的无私帮助的感激之情。（So）

A.controversialB.delicateC.dynamicD.objective

A.we can; any whoB.can we; whoeverC.we can; anyoneD.can we; who

A.whomB.whichC.themD.whoever

The Voice in the Box

When I was quite young, my family had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished the wooden case fastened to the wall on the lower stair landing. But my first personal experience with this genie-in-the-receiver came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench, I hurt my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be much use crying, because there was no one home to offer sympathy. I walked around the house, and finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly I ran for the footstool and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver and held it to my ear. “Information Please,” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

A click or two, and a small, clear voice spoke into my ear, “Information.”

“I hurt my finger…” I cried into the phone. The tears came readily enough, now that I had an audience.

“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.

“Nobody’s home but me.” I sobbed.

“Are you bleeding?”

“No,” I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”

“Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could. “Then break off a little piece of ice and hold it on your finger. That will stop the hurt. Be careful when you use the icepick(冰锥),” she said, “And don’t cry. You’ll be all right.”

After that, I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was, and the Orinoco, the romantic river that I was going to explore when I grew up. She helped me with my arithmetic, and she told me that my pet chipmunk----I had caught him in the park just the day before----would eat fruit and nuts.

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Living Jewels

Before I went to the British Koi Keepers Annual Show, I didn’t understand 【1】 people could take fish so seriously. However, the more I learned about koi, the more interested became. As one expert told me, "Collecting koi is far more addictive than you might think. They’re as beautiful as butterflies and very calming to watch." Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, would have agreed the pool in his specially-built Japanese garden was home to 89 koi,【2】 cost up to $10,000 each.

At the show I met koi enthusiast Jean Kelly. “Koi are getting more and more expensive,” she told me. “One recently sold for $250,000.” I was shocked that's almost as much as I paid for my house. Well, that was a record,【3】(admit) Jean. The normal price is nowhere near as high as that.

Nevertheless, serious collectors can pay up to $15,000 for a fully 【4】(grow) koi, which is nearly as expensive as a new luxurious car, and the bigger they are, the more they cost. The cheapest I 【5】 find was $75 each, but they were only about twice as big as my goldfish.

Jean wasn’t impressed by one of the koi on sale either. “Actually, these koi aren’t any nicer than 【6】,” she commented. “【7】 they are slightly bigger than the ones I’ve got, I paid considerable less than this.”

I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as Jean, but I did consider【8】(buy) one. Then I remembered that all but 5 of Freddie Mercury's koi died when someone accidentally turned off the electricity supply to their pool. Jean assured me that with all the new equipment available the survival rate was getting better and better, and that looking 【9】koi was no harder than taking care of any other pet. However, in the end I decided to stick with my goldfish. They’re not nearly as beautiful as koi ——but they’re a great deal cheaper 【10】(replace) !

Space is a dangerous place, not only because of meteors (流星) but also because of rays from the sun and other stars. The atmosphere again acts 【1】 our protective blanket on earth. Light gets through, and this is essential for plants 【2】(make) the food which we eat. Heat, too, makes our environment endurable. Various kinds of rays come through the air from outer space, but enormous quantities of radiation from the sun 【3】 (screen) off. As soon as men leave the atmosphere, they are exposed to this radiation but their spacesuit or the walls of their spacecraft,【4】 they are inside, do prevent a lot of radiation damage.

Radiation is 【5】(great) known danger to explorers in space. The unit of radiation is called "rem". Scientists have reason to think that a man can put up with far more than 0.1 rem without 【6】(damage); the figure of 60 rems has been agreed on. The trouble is 【7】 it is extremely difficult to be sure about radiation damage - a person may feel perfectly well, but the cells of his or her sex organs may be damaged, and this will not be discovered 【8】 the birth of deformed children or even grandchildren. Missions of the Apollo flights have had to cross belts of high radiation and, during the outward and return journeys, the Apollo crew accumulated (积累) a large amount of rems. So far, no dangerous amounts of radiation have been reported, but the Apollo missions have been quite short. We simply don't know yet 【9】 men are going to get on when they spent weeks and months outside the protection of the atmosphere, working in a space laboratory. Drugs might help to decrease the damage 【10】(do) by radiation, but no really effective ones have been found so far.

A.takingB.claimingC.killingD.costing