{"id":1156055,"date":"2023-02-17T16:11:47","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T21:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-ama-said-trust-your-doctor-on-smoking\/1156055\/"},"modified":"2023-02-17T16:11:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T21:11:47","slug":"the-ama-said-trust-your-doctor-on-smoking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-ama-said-trust-your-doctor-on-smoking\/1156055\/","title":{"rendered":"The AMA Said ‘Trust Your Doctor’ On Smoking"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

The AMA Said ‘Trust Your Doctor’ On Smoking<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Kevin Homer via The Brownstone Institute,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The American Medical Association (AMA) urges physicians to promote\u00a0COVID-19 vaccines<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0bivalent boosters<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The AMA even supplies members with social media\u00a0talking points<\/a>\u00a0and strategies to deal with vaccine\u00a0detractors<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is not the first time that my profession has\u00a0endorsed<\/a>\u00a0a product that may be hazardous to your health.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For most of the 20th century, the AMA turned a blind eye toward the dangers of tobacco use.\u00a0During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, tobacco companies paid handsomely to\u00a0advertise cigarettes<\/a>\u00a0in AMA\u2019s journal,\u00a0JAMA<\/em>.\u00a0In a\u00a01948 editorial<\/a>\u00a0minimizing the ill effects of smoking and justifying tobacco advertising in its publications,\u00a0JAMA<\/em>\u00a0noted that \u201ccigarette business is a tremendous business,\u201d as if the size of the bottom line can mitigate a conflict for an organization founded for the \u201cbetterment of public health<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0connection<\/a>\u00a0between smoking and lung cancer was recognized early in the century.\u00a0At the same time, the AMA became increasingly dependent on money generated by tobacco sales.\u00a0Tobacco companies\u00a0sponsored meetings<\/a>\u00a0of medical societies, setting up their\u00a0booths<\/a>\u00a0alongside exhibitions of the latest medical treatments.\u00a0Free cartons<\/a>\u00a0were distributed at physician meetings.\u00a0Cigarette makers even paid for publication of pseudoscientific\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0claiming the health benefits of their products. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Doctors who opposed smoking faced ridicule from their colleagues.<\/strong>\u00a0Dr. Alton Ochsner<\/a>, a renowned surgeon and sentinel voice warning of the dangers of tobacco, began publishing on the connection between smoking and lung cancer in the early\u00a01940s<\/a>.\u00a0His 1954 book\u00a0Smoking and Cancer: A Doctor\u2019s Report<\/a><\/em>\u00a0was negatively reviewed in prominent medical journals, characterized as a\u00a0medieval model of logic<\/a>\u00a0that belongs in the\u00a0nonscience section of a library<\/a>.\u00a0Prior to his appearance on\u00a0Meet the Press<\/a><\/em>, Dr. Ochsner was told he could not discuss the relationship between smoking and lung cancer on air.<\/p>\n

Yet the mounting\u00a0evidence<\/a>\u00a0was hard to ignore.\u00a0In 1954,\u00a0JAMA<\/em>\u00a0stopped<\/a>\u00a0accepting cigarette advertisements and published an\u00a0editorial<\/a>\u00a0rebuking tobacco company advertising practices.\u00a0But five years later, a\u00a0JAMA<\/em>\u00a0editorial<\/a>\u00a0was still skeptical of the evidence linking smoking to cancer, and a 1961\u00a0Nebraska State Medical Journal<\/em>\u00a0editorial<\/a>\u00a0dismissed the evidence as merely \u201cstatistical.\u201d\u00a0Tobacco companies continued to sponsor state\u00a0medical meetings<\/a>\u00a0as late as 1969.\u00a0By then most people were aware of the dangers of smoking.<\/p>\n

In 1964, the\u00a0Surgeon General<\/a>\u00a0concluded that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other life-limiting health conditions. The next year, a\u00a0warning label<\/a>\u00a0was required on packages of cigarettes.\u00a0By 1971, the government\u00a0banned cigarette advertisements<\/a>\u00a0on television and radio.\u00a0Instead of taking the lead against an obvious\u00a0threat to public health<\/a>, the AMA asked for time and money to study the effects of tobacco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Between 1964 and 1976, the AMA received more than\u00a0$20 million<\/a>\u00a0from the tobacco industry to fund research<\/strong>.\u00a0Instead of using the money for smoking cessation programs, many of the funded studies focused on ways to\u00a0make a safer cigarette<\/a>.\u00a0To keep money flowing into its\u00a0Education and Research Foundation<\/a>\u00a0the AMA delayed, stating in a\u00a0confidential 1971 report<\/a>\u00a0that, \u201cAMA is not prepared to make any statement regarding termination of the smoking-health research program.\u201d\u00a0The report went on to complain that tobacco companies are \u201cin arrears on 1970 contributions.\u201d\u00a0The dependency on tobacco money created a political alliance between doctors and cigarette makers as their\u00a0lobbyists<\/a>\u00a0joined forces in Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The delay benefitted tobacco sales and maintained the AMA\u2019s \u201cresearch\u201d payments, but it angered Dr. Ochsner, who accused the AMA of being derelict.\u00a0The AMA called Dr. Ochsner\u2019s position \u201cextreme<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0But name-calling could not stall the inevitable conclusion any longer.\u00a0In 1978 the\u00a0AMA finally agreed<\/a>\u00a0with what most people had already realized:\u00a0smoking<\/a>\u00a0causes lung cancer, and many other health problems.\u00a0The romance with big tobacco was over.<\/p>\n

Or was it?<\/p>\n

As late as 1982,\u00a0JAMA<\/em>\u00a0publications were\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0to steer clear of \u201cpolitically sensitive\u201d topics like tobacco use.<\/strong>\u00a0After most of a century of being on the tobacco dole, the AMA could not make a\u00a0clean break<\/a>.\u00a0The AMA portfolio contained\u00a0investments<\/a>\u00a0in tobacco companies until the late 1990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1998, the tobacco industry settled lawsuits filed by state governments with a massive\u00a0Master Settlement Agreement<\/a>.\u00a0In exchange for perpetual annual payments and tight regulatory control, the tobacco industry could continue to sell its products\u00a0protected from future lawsuits<\/a>\u00a0brought by participating states and jurisdictions. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But who really\u00a0benefitted<\/a>\u00a0from the Tobacco Settlement? Only\u00a02.6 percent of the money<\/a>\u00a0has been used for smoking prevention and cessation programs.\u00a0<\/strong>Some states have used the tobacco money to\u00a0fill budget<\/a>\u00a0gaps.\u00a0South Carolina gave money to tobacco farmers affected by a drop in prices.\u00a0Altria Group, a global tobacco company, is on the\u00a0US News & World Report<\/a><\/em>\u00a010 best-performing stocks list. Altria, Phillip Morris, and British American Tobacco have all\u00a0grown annual dividends<\/a>\u00a0consecutively since the settlement.\u00a0According to\u00a0Dr. Ed Anselm<\/a>, \u201cThe most addictive thing about tobacco is money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tobacco use remains the number one\u00a0preventable cause of death<\/a>\u00a0in the United States.\u00a0In the first fifty years after the Surgeon General\u2019s 1964 report, more than\u00a020 million<\/a>\u00a0Americans died of smoking. How many of these deaths would have been prevented if doctors had not been conflicted by financial entanglements with the tobacco industry?<\/p>\n

Money blinds objectivity.\u00a0When\u00a0money drives decisions<\/a>,\u00a0controverting evidence is ignored<\/a>,\u00a0dissenting voices are ridiculed<\/a>,\u00a0open debate is suppressed<\/a>,\u00a0talking points are distributed<\/a>,\u00a0conclusions are delayed<\/a>, and\u00a0people die<\/a>\u00a0from a product with\u00a0liability protection<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0New York State Journal of Medicine<\/em>\u00a0published a retrospective of tobacco\u2019s relationship to medicine in its\u00a0December 1983<\/a>\u00a0issue.\u00a0Flipping through the pages is enlightening.\u00a0 Surrounding the articles describing the greed and politics of Big Tobacco are advertisements from medicine\u2019s new love\u2014Big Pharma.\u00a0 Doctors have exchanged one bedfellow for another.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By endorsing\u00a0irrelevant COVID-19 vaccines<\/a>\u00a0and poorly tested\u00a0bivalent boosters<\/a>, the AMA is pushing a product without concern for its potential negative health effects.\u00a0Like before, the medical profession lags behind public opinion.\u00a0According to recent Rasmussen Reports,\u00a07 percent of vaccinated individuals<\/a>\u00a0report a major side effect, and\u00a0nearly half<\/a>\u00a0of Americans believe that COVID-19 vaccines have caused unexplained deaths, about the same proportion who believed that smoking caused cancer\u00a0in the 1960s<\/a>\u00a0while the AMA was studying the issue.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0conflicted profession<\/a>\u00a0cannot honestly evaluate data.\u00a0Nowadays, the\u00a0pharmaceutical business<\/a>\u00a0is a tremendous business.\u00a0An organization benefitting from product sales cannot be trusted to evaluate that product.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If doctors could not recognize the health\u00a0dangers of tobacco<\/a>\u00a0for most of the last century, why should we trust them when they say novel vaccines are\u00a0safe and effective<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 02\/17\/2023 – 20:20<\/span><\/p>\n

From:Zerohedge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The AMA Said ‘Trust Your Doctor’ On Smoking Authored by Kevin Homer via The Brownstone Institute, The American Medical Association (AMA) urges physicians to promote\u00a0COVID-19…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1156055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1156055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1156055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1156055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1156055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}