On 3/24/2009
Hopeful sister wrote:
I have a beautiful, wonderful brother with larynax cancer having had a total laryngectomy and the stoma all the horrific struggles it entails. I am not a smoker and am glad I never started. He was a smoker from an early age. I however don't think that he or people like him should be used as "poster children" for the cause against smoking in magazines, on TV and at the beginning of movies. It is hard enough on the people that have to deal with all the daily realities and humiliations that go along with this condition. Sure he smoked which contributed to developing this cancer, which he realizes. But should all those ads sit out there for people to view over and over and over as he sits or stands there with people with the outcome visible on his body? Sure it MAY be a deterrent to a few (but doubtful), this doesn't happen to everyone that smokes and almost EVERYONE has denial that it could possibly happen to them anyhow. Why don't we bombard the public with ads displaying the horrors (which are many) of the real life horrible details of someone with cirrhosis of the liver, or liver cancer or hepatitis and how pitiful their bodies wll begin to look, as a result of excess or prolonged alcohol consumption. Also, how about those obese people. Lets constantly replay them trying to squeeze into clothing and trying to fit in an airplane seat. How about showing the diabetes that can develope among these people and show their limbs gradually being amputated one by one and how the gangrene will look eating away at their bodies. Or prehaps how the obese may look and function after a severe heart attack, if they live through the heart attack. I am just saying lots of things happen to us that we may one way or another contribute to or may not contribute to but it is hard enough on the person and their families when it happens without displaying these horrors "with a message of see how pitiful you may get to be" at the expense of the ones that have a hard enough time living it. There are other ways of getting points across, if not then lets just include all diseases that you may in some way contribute to getting and display all the results for all to see!!!!!!!!! Somehow human kindness and compassion should come into consideration!
Dear Hopeful Sister,
I disagree. My professional background is in health communication. The stats are very strong and very in the field of social communication (via a process called reification) that adverts showing smokers and the impact of smoking via graphic images does, indeed, work. Maybe you don't feel it works, but many top universities (e.g., Stanford) have conducted many well designed studies showing that this type of advertising works. And it works better over time as the key messages sink in.
In Canada, for example, smoking is now banned in restaurants and in public areas. Without advertising like this to raise awareness across Canada, this never would have happened because the average Joe taxpayer Citizen would never let it.
Me? I'm a 12 year survivor of kidney cancer, stage III. I never smoked a day in my life, but was raised around smokers. I remember riding in the backseat of my parents car as they both puffed away. Maybe this was the cause of my kidney cancer? I dunno... but it is probable according to my oncologist.
So, yes, I thank the fellow who laments the day he started smoking and is spreading the word. You may disagree, and that's your business and your prerogative - it's what free speech is all about and what my parents (and brother a Nam Vet) fought for. But the proof is in the puddling - advertisements that have poster boys (and poster girls) graphically showing the impact smoking does work over time and repetition to change broader social values of what is acceptable and what is not. Maybe you're one of the few that don't agree with this... but believe me, you are one of the minority (according to the research again).
And yes, though it may not sound "politically correct" as morbidly obease people do have feelings (like smokers have feelings) I also feel that they too should be made into poster children for diabetes. Sugar addictions and fast food addictions are just as dangerous as smoking. It's an eye opener to travel the world and return home to North America and see people double the size of people elsewhere in this world. It's plain unhealthy and will drop the USA (and Canada) to its knees unless this epidemic is addressed pronto. Do you like seeing your child WADDLING along the malls, downing super-sized 54 oz. Slurrpies and Cokes, etc? If you do, that dysfunctional. If you don't, that's normal and that's healthy parenting. And it's high time we took that stuff out of our school cafeterias (it's happening in Canada, and I see now it's happening in my neighbourhood in Southern California). Indeed, I remember the day when smoking was permitted in hospitals -- I'm that old. But that's not right, never was and now it's banned. But I'll get off my soapbox about smoking.
I commend the one year since diagnosis survivor for raising this issue. Bravo to you sir for coming forward and raising awareness!
Paula Jean ,