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New Cigarette Labels From The FDA

The FDA will soon require new cigarette package labeling to deter smoking. So in politically-correct governmental fashion, they are asking which labels you’d like to see. (You can pick your favorites here.) My personal favorite (so far) is the one shown to the left, but its impact factor pales in comparison to this example found in England. (That, my friends, is cancer!)

Ironically, it appears the FDA isn’t too sure how forceful it should be in these warnings about the dangers of smoking. They offer a cornucopia of milquetoast labeling options, many of which contain cartoons. Might such unrealistic portrayals defy they hard-hitting message they want to project? Worse, at least one cartoon (seen here) even seems to promote cigarettes AND drug use together!

In an even more astonishing example, some images almost make me what to take up smoking so I can blow big bubbles. Since I could never do this well before, maybe I should take up smoking! Seriously, is an empowerment message what the government wants to portray?

Make these labels big, ugly, and real. Anything else is a waste of taxpayer’s money.

-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

Screening For Lung Cancer: New Findings And Continued Controversy

Lung cancer screening has been an area of considerable controversy. Before today, there had been no evidence that screening patients for lung cancer, either with a CT scan or chest x-ray, saved lives.

For years, doctors have been waiting for the results of the large, randomized National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), conducted by the National Cancer Institute.

[Yesterday] it was announced that the trial was stopped early, with a bold, positive finding:

All participants had a history of at least 30 pack-years, and were either current or former smokers without signs, symptoms, or a history of lung cancer.

As of Oct. 20, 2010, the researchers saw a total of 354 deaths from lung cancer in the CT group, compared with 442 in the chest x-ray group.

That amounts to a 20.3% reduction in lung cancer mortality — a finding that the study’s independent data and safety monitoring board decided was statistically significant enough to halt the trial and declare a benefit.

Previously, only breast, colon, and cervical cancer has had the evidence back up its screening recommendations. It’s still early in the game, but it appears that lung cancer may be following in that same path. That said, there are a variety of concerns before opening up the floodgates to screening chest CTs. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Stop Smoking Treatment: Don’t Stop It Too Soon

Butt stopDoctors may want their patients to stick with a smoking cessation regimen even if it’s not initially working, report researchers who found that “delayed quitters” accounted for a third of former smokers who went a year without cigarettes.

Quit rates may be significantly increased by just continuing in motivated but initially unsuccessful patients during the first eight weeks of treatment, according to research published online in the journal Addiction. There’s actually two types of successful quitters: Those who quit immediately and those who are “delayed” but eventually successful. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

How A Gynecologist Thinks About Lung Cancer

Out of the Shadows: Women and Lung CancerA new report on lung cancer in women has been published by the Women’s Health Policy and Advocacy Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Called “Out of the Shadows,” the report seeks to raise awareness about lung cancer, currently the leading cause of cancer death in women, and more importantly, to increase funding for research for its prevention, detection and treatment. (Thanks to Booster Shots, the LA Times‘ fabulous health blog, for highlighting the report.) I encourage you to read the report, which is well written and comprehensive. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Blog that Ate Manhattan*

Healthy, Active Kids Come From Healthy, Active Adults

First RunKids are like dogs — you can train them until they’re too old to train. Then they’re going to do whatever they want.

The key to getting kids to exercise is to make it fun for them. But they aren’t going to exercise if it isn’t made a part of their normal routine. It’s up to adults to train them.

Mrs. Happy and I had the joyous opportunity of inviting our 10-year-old niece to her first-ever running event. She had never ever run in a race before. We did the two-mile race and she loved it. And amazingly, she finished without stopping — not even once.

Our nation is raising a nation of fat and lazy kids because we’re lazy adults. We drive everywhere. We sit at our desks. We get food on the run. We watch a lot of television. We surf the Net a bunch. And we have stopped moving. We have literally stopped moving. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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