BMJ  2007;334:21 (6 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39059.532095.68

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Should smokers be refused surgery?

¹ Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02118, USA

Last year a primary care trust announced it would take smokers off waiting lists for surgery in an attempt to contain costs. Matthew Peters argues that denying operations is justified for specific conditions but Leonard Glantz believes it is unacceptable discrimination

One of the noblest things about the profession of medicine has been its single minded devotion to patients. Doctors routinely treat patients who are despised by the society in which they live—enemy troops, terrorists, murderers. Given this, it is astounding that doctors would question whether they should treat smokers. The issue for doctors is whether they will allow the current antismoking zeal in America, the United Kingdom, and western Europe to infect their practice and undermine the doctor-patient relationship.

In a surprisingly short time smokers have gone from being the victims of tobacco companies to perpetrators of wrongs against others. Secondhand smoke used to be an annoyance but is now treated as a poisonous gas. Smokers' diseases were previously seen as the result of a heartless tobacco industry preying on the young and supplying drugs to those it addicted. Tobacco companies used to win every lawsuit brought against them by . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Houle, B, Siegel, M (2009). Smoker-free workplace policies: developing a model of public health consequences of workplace policies barring employment to smokers. Tobacco Control 18: 64-69 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Prato, R. A D. (2007). The best time to die (to help fellow taxpayers). BMJ 334: 110-110 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

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