Will You Follow a Doctor’s Advice?
WHEN it comes to tobacco smoking, what is a doctor’s responsibility? Simply to treat those who suffer from smoking-related diseases? Dr. Louis Sullivan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, feels that doctors should do much more than that. He wrote recently in The Journal of the American Medical Association: “Physicians have a responsibility to inform patients of the health consequences of smoking, to assist patients who do not smoke from starting, and to help smokers to kick the habit.”
Why should doctors get so involved with their patients’ lives and choices? Dr. Sullivan acknowledges: “Smoking is a choice, but it is a bad one.” He gives compelling proof: “Each year, smoking kills almost 400 000 Americans; that is more than 1000 persons a day, accounting for greater than one of every six deaths in our country. The number of Americans who die each year of diseases caused by smoking exceeds the number of Americans who died in World War II.”
Focusing on women, Sullivan cites further disturbing findings: “Lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as the most prevalent cause of death from cancer in women. Women who smoke are three times as likely to have a heart attack as women who have never smoked, and women smokers risk poor health and death from emphysema and other smoking-related diseases. Women who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have miscarriages, low-birth-weight infants, and children who die during infancy.”
In the face of these appalling facts, Dr. Sullivan notes that there is still considerable pressure for people to smoke. He decries as “contemptible” the cigarette advertising schemes that target minority groups. He also expresses alarm over the cunning use of young, attractive models in bright, sunny locales to suggest to youths that smoking is healthy and appealing. In reality, if smoking rates do not change, five million children alive today could end up dead from smoking-related diseases. “That,” Dr. Sullivan urges his fellow doctors, “is a catastrophe we must prevent.”
Whether doctors really will prevent this catastrophe remains in doubt. As Dr. Sullivan notes: “Unfortunately, some physicians continue to smoke, setting a poor example for their patients and staff and giving an anti-health message to all who know them.”