Thank You for Smoking?
I don’t know if any of you have ever seen a movie that was released in 2005 called “Thank You for Smoking,” but the satirical film follows the life and philosophy of the main character, Nick Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhart), who is a spokesman for a major smoking company in the US. The idea of the movie is that a person can put a spin on anything to give it more appeal, and Nick Naylor is a master of the art. The movie is hilarious, and, according to its article on Wikipedia, is an exploration in the libertarian view that if people are properly educated of the benefits and pitfalls of a decision, they should have the freedom to make the decision that is best for them, even if it is unpopular. You can read more about it here.
Well, smokers at risk for Parkinson’s disease got an interesting reason not to kick their habit this week according to a report released by the University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health. According to the study, there is a protective effect generated by tobacco use against the degenerative nerve disease, which has been borne out by several studies on the topic over the past 47 years. Further, the study indicates a persistent protective effect, with smokers who had quit up to 25 years earlier also demonstrating better protection against the disease.
This kind of effect seems to be specific to the action of smoking tobacco. It is not believed that a nicotine patch or any other anti-smoking remedy could be linked to the benefit. This is mainly because in studies done with animals, the carbon monoxide or other agents in tobacco smoke seem to promote the survival of brain neurons that produce dopamine, a chemical lacking in Parkinson’s patients responsible for muscle movement. The other possibility is that the smoke ironically prevents the creation of toxic substances that normally would interfere with proper neurological functioning.
You can see more information about the report, including study statistics, here on the Reuter’s site.
Nick Naylor would jump at the opportunity to grasp this study and use it to his advantage. But upon reading about the results of this report (and really, it was only the summary I got from Reuters), I wondered whether this study was going to empower people who are truly addicted to have another reason not to quit.
Statistics play a critical role in the decisions we make in our day-to-day lives. An opinion often seems less credible without some statistic or personal experience behind it. But some statistics, such as these that were gathered by this report, seem almost counterintuitive to me. I mean, will doctors potentially recommend smoking as a treatment for Parkinson’s in the future? Dr. Gregory House, of the television show “House MD”, once prescribed “smoking” as a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, a scene I found amusing in the context of the TV program, but I would be horrified to see in an actual clinic. Yet, there are doctors that would prescribe drugs that could have a far more dangerous (and immediate) effect.
I am always weary of statistics presented to me by doctors, sales people, and anyone else who could have an agenda. There seems to be a statistic for everything now, and the onus is on the consumer to actually examine the facts and understand the nuances of a decision before following a certain path. In that way, I agree with the libertarian view as mentioned on the Wikipedia Web Site of “Thank You for Not Smoking”, and it is becoming increasingly important for people to make decisions based on all the information that’s available.
How do you feel about smoking as a treatment rather than as a social habit and the statistics that have been presented for its use in treatment of Parkinson’s patients? Would you suggest smoking to someone who might be suffering from the early stages of Parkinson’s? What are the moral implications of such a suggestion?
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[...] Again in July, I came across a study that linked smoking with the prevention of Parkinson’s disease. Interestingly, it didn’t have anything to do with any one particular chemical in the cigarettes, but with the act of smoking them (read more here). Well, in spite of that article and the convincing research, I didn’t become an advocate for smoking, even if it raised the question as to whether certain people should start. It didn’t slow down the development of new drugs to help wean people off smoking either, with two new drugs entering the market: TA-NIC and Dianicline. [...]