If a poisonous, radioactive agent kills tens of millions every year, you might think someone would take notice.

         Not the American media.  Tobacco is poised to addict about 1.3 billion people around the world, and will help kill nearly half.  On average, American smokers will lose 14 years of life.  A major legacy of the Bush Administration will be the great aid it provided and still provides the tobacco companies in addicting hundreds of millions in the United States and overseas.

         It was not enough to have a tobacco company lobbyist head tobacco regulation at the EPA.  It was not enough to deny attempts by FDA head Dr. David Kessler to regulate tobacco as a drug.  The Bush Administration’s focus on protecting tobacco companies and destroying the public health has been much more intense, and more personal.

         Dr. Richard Carmona was a different type of surgeon-general.  A former New York gang leader and high school dropout, Vietnam Special Forces Combat veteran, paramedic and nurse, he won the graduation gold medal at UCSF medical school, became a trauma surgeon, and helped head a SWAT team.  Carmona admits he was naïve as to what he was required to do when in 2002 he became the nation’s top administrative doctor and defender of the public health.

         One job requirement was to submit to his many political handlers.  Every speech he gave was supposed to include three glowing appraisals of the Bush administration’s policies on every page. Paris Hilton take note.

         And when Carmona tried to give evidence for the government’s own case against the tobacco companies, he was told to shut up.  Don’t testify.  To his credit, Carmona did, and effectively.

         Yet it was for nothing.  The lawsuit was expected to generate $300 billion dollars for the Federal government.  At the last moment, the Bush administration quashed the lawsuit.  The tobacco companies cheered, their financial future assured.
        
What Do You Do with $300 billion?

         The tobacco companies have made it clear where this unbelievable windfall will be spent – addicting women and children around the world. Globalization means people have rising incomes.  Rising incomes mean people can afford cigarettes.

         They will be sold with all the skill and experience Big Tobacco has developed over the last century.   The $300 billion that might have broken the backs of the large tobacco companies, that would have been used for the Federal budget deficit and for stop smoking campaigns, will be spent instead showcase to billions of “young consumers” the glamour of cigarettes.

         We’re angry when pets die from tainted Chinese products, yet we do not respond when our government helps in the addiction of children and young mothers. Even if killing millions doesn’t bother us, don’t the trillions in added health care costs give some of our CEOs and politicians pause?

What Can Be Done
        
         Even if they’ve bought the American government and large parts of America media, the war against tobacco companies goes on.   It’s even making progress.

         France, the land of Gauloises and puffing movie stars, is banning smoking in schools, hospitals, and offices.  Nine Canadian provinces at least partially ban public smoking, as do 16 American states.  Massachusetts’ public health programs have cut smoking in half in the last ten years.

         How did they do it?  A recent article in the Harvard School of Public Health review explains some of the effective ways:

1. High taxes.  People respond to money.  If something costs too much, they stop paying for it.   You can also put the money into worthy programs. A plan to expand health insurance for uninsured children recently passed the House of Representatives, with much of the cost coming from higher tobacco taxes. President Bush says he will veto the bill.

2. Enforce tobacco taxes.  By some estimates, smuggling tobacco products is the most lucrative criminal market in the United States.

3. Ban smoking in public places.  Ask a smoker in Maine what it’s like getting a smoking break outside on a brisk February morning, and you’ll understand.

4. Teach about tobacco in the schools.   Anti-smoking education has come a long way since the days of “Reefer Madness” films.

5. Get private health insurance to pay for stop smoking programs.  New drugs like varenecline, when combined with group therapy, are more effective than older treatments. Smokers, already reeling from public opprobrium, need every break they can get to quit.

6. Publicly and aggressively advertise against smoking.

         These public programs work worldwide, and can improve. One factor that has received far too little attention is that tobacco smoke is radioactive. Tobacco plants pick up polonium 210 from the atmosphere and concentrate it. When you light up, you really light up.
Present estimates are that 438,000 Americans will die of smoking related deaths this year. Tens of millions will die worldwide.

         Historians should pay attention. The Bush Administration has a lot to answer for.

Dr. Matthew Edlund, M.D., M.O.H., director of The Center for Circadian Medicine, is an expert on applied public health, sleep medicine and psychiatry. A former professor at Brown and University of Texas medical schools, he can be reached via email to DocME@DoctorEdlund.com. And CLICK HERE to subscribe to our new Fitcast, via the iTunes Store.