Smoking-Related Stigmatization May Affect COPD Care and Research

[nicnik]

Another result of a "shaming smokers" Google News search:

http://lungdiseasenews.com/2014/11/...matization-may-affect-copd-care-and-research/

 

[renacer]

I remember when I was a teenager I used to watch the show House and there was one episode where House said, "you're not going to see any ribbons for lung cancer like there are for breast cancer and prostate cancer because society says if you have lung cancer then you probably deserve it." Horrible but true, how people suffering are low priority if they smoked (or if the majority smoked, as non-smokers can get COPD and lung cancer).

 

[Augmented Dog]

I remember when I was a teenager I used to watch the show House and there was one episode where House said, "you're not going to see any ribbons for lung cancer like there are for breast cancer and prostate cancer because society says if you have lung cancer then you probably deserve it." Horrible but true, how people suffering are low priority if they smoked (or if the majority smoked, as non-smokers can get COPD and lung cancer).

Unfortunately, true.

 

[Augmented Dog]

Thank you, nicnik, for posting this.
Too many people have been blamed and ignored in this society for their health conditions.
We've all made choices in our lives. Many without real information available. Many with no information available.
Many without choosing anything at all.
Still, these folks suffer from society's prejudices and desire to turn away.
We've seen it over and over again with many afflictions.
I won't even take the space to mention the dozen I can think of off the top of my head.
Wish I could be surprised by this article. Sadly, I'm not.

 

[nomore stinkies]

That article broke my heart. It is so true. The smoker knows the stigma and shame. I think we have all felt it at one time or another. You want to hide in a hole. I remember that a client asked me if I smoked (after failing to get rid of all the stench) I was so embarrassed, I got mad and defended my habit. Pathetic comment.

 

[Kent C]

I remember when I was a teenager I used to watch the show House and there was one episode where House said, "you're not going to see any ribbons for lung cancer like there are for breast cancer and prostate cancer because society says if you have lung cancer then you probably deserve it." Horrible but true, how people suffering are low priority if they smoked (or if the majority smoked, as non-smokers can get COPD and lung cancer).

Wilson: "Oh, right. I forgot how much you care about what people think. Prescribing cigarettes for inflammatory bowel? That uh ... they can cause cancer, you know."
House: "Do you know why they have ribbons for breast cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, but not for lung cancer?"
Wilson: "They ... ran out of colors?"
House: "It's because people blame lung cancer patients. They smoked, they screwed up, they deserve to die.

Good memory!

 

[Tache]

My take is that the shaming is completely unethical. As a smoker for about 40 years, I'm going to tell you - I WAS/AM NOT ASHAMED - just ...... off at ignorant small-minded people for attempting to treat this intelligent woman as "less than"! Further, I am not ashamed to walk down the street vaping my VTR or Provari - wearing my business suit and high heels to boot ( a little under 5" tall, I usually wear heels - except when I change into jeans and gumboots to go out and shovel manure from my horse's corral in the back yard). There's a lot more honesty in manure than what comes out of sanctimonious mouthes.

 

[nicnik]

My take is that the shaming is completely unethical. As a smoker for about 40 years, I'm going to tell you - I WAS/AM NOT ASHAMED - just ...... off at ignorant small-minded people for attempting to treat this intelligent woman as "less than"! Further, I am not ashamed to walk down the street vaping my VTR or Provari - wearing my business suit and high heels to boot ( a little under 5" tall, I usually wear heels - except when I change into jeans and gumboots to go out and shovel manure from my horse's corral in the back yard). There's a lot more honesty in manure than what comes out of sanctimonious mouthes.

I wish I felt as immune to the shaming as you. I applaud you.

 

[Tache]

I wish I felt as immune to the shaming as you. I applaud you.

Knowledge and self-confidence translate into the immunity you applaud. You and I are only 5'ish years apart in age and one of the things I've found is as I get older (and hopefully wiser), I have less tolerance for BS, although strangely enough more patience and compassion. Believe to your core that anyone who feels they have the right to denigrate anyone else for the things that they do, when those things do not truly impact anyone else, suffers from a feeling of inadequacy - and deserves understanding, but not "air time" from you. Give them a chance or two to be educated and if they don't see reason - write them off.

 

[DrMA]

It's time for the general public to realize that smoker-hater agitprop from tobacco control lunatics results in the infringement of everyone's human rights.
Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger

 

[nicnik]

Believe to your core that anyone who feels they have the right to denigrate anyone else for the things that they do, when those things do not truly impact anyone else, suffers from a feeling of inadequacy - and deserves understanding, but not "air time" from you. Give them a chance or two to be educated and if they don't see reason - write them off.

OK, well I was inspired by your words and blew vapor in the face of a raccoon on my porch. I underestimated his hatred for anything that even just looks like smoking. Don't worry, I'm all right now.

But seriously, I meant that in 'vague past tense' in the sense that with vaping I don't have nearly that vulnerability to the shaming, but I got to admit, I feel cringes of it from some of the government sponsored hate messaging. I haven't smoked in nearly 2 years, though.

 

[CarolT]

And remember, we can thank the American Lung Association for turning people with COPD into pariahs. Just like their cronies in the American Cancer Society turned people with lung cancer into second class citizens. And it's not just speculative that their malice "MAY" affect research. Because of them, for many decades there was no research on the role of infection, because the only thing the ALA cared about was bashing smokers so the only thing they "researched" was peoples' smoking habits. EVEN NOW, those outrageous criminals try to blame CD4+CD28null T cells that the found on "contents of smoke"!
T cell senescence and contraction of T cell repertoire diversity in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Those CD4+CD28null T cells just happen to be absolutely specific for cytomegalovirus infection. Nothing else causes them. They've been observed to arise during primary CMV infection, and they're found only among those who are CMV positive. And smokers are more likely to have been exposed to CMV for socioeconomic reasons.
Cytomegalovirus Is Implicated in COPD
That also explains why "Never smokers represented 42% of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey population aged 30 to 80 years, with obstruction prevalence of 91 per 1000. Never smokers accounted for 4.56 million cases of obstruction, or 23% of the total burden." (Airway obstruction in never smokers: results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. BR Celli, RJ Halbert, RJ Nordyke, B Schau. Am J Med 2005 Dec;118(12):1364-1372.)
Airway obstruction in never smokers: results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. - PubMed - NCBI

 

[CarolT]

Here's a blog post by a never-smoker with lung cancer. Its title is "Go Ahead (and ask me if I smoked) … Make My Day."

Go Ahead (and ask me if I smoked) … Make My Day

 

[caramel]

If we created a healthcare system where treatment is proportional to prejudice, we probably did it all wrong.

 

[Caro123]

great article by the blog poster "

Here's a blog post by a never-smoker with lung cancer. Its title is "Go Ahead (and ask me if I smoked) … Make My Day."

Go Ahead (and ask me if I smoked) … Make My Day

it reminds me so much of a patient I once nursed who would frequently remind me he never smoked a day in his life interestingly he came from an area of Cape Breton known as the Sydney tar ponds so I often wondered if environmental damage was more a cause than anything else. He was a nice man who made me a little wooden mini candle stick holder. I have heard rumours here in Canada of some ill informed surgeon who has threatened to not provide care to smokers and rumours of home care service workers who are refusing care to housebound patients who smoke -not so sure those actions if they were to take effect, could stand up to a legal challenge though - still it is sad and falls far below anything I would consider to be duty to care.