Vigilance urged for patients' lifestyle choices

AMA policy signals a renewed commitment to fight smoking, obesity and underage drinking.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. July 7, 2003.

Chicago -- Don't smoke. Don't drink. Watch what you eat. And get off the couch.

Though it's all been said before, it needs to be said again -- and with renewed commitment. At least that's the point made by a series of policies adopted at the AMA's Annual Meeting last month. The actions encouraged physicians to stay focused on patient lifestyle issues, and called for public and private efforts to buttress these messages.

"It's part of an overall resurgence of interest in public health," said Yank D. Coble Jr., MD, AMA immediate past president.

Issues regarding tobacco use prevention and cessation, point-of-sale restrictions, and tobacco product labeling received considerable attention -- consistent with the House of Medicine's long-term concern about the health effects of smoking.

"We have allowed companies to create an entire subclass of our society that are neurochemical slaves," said William P. Gibbons, MD, a pathologist from Aurora, Ill. and a delegate from the Organized Medical Staff Section. "These are our patients, and they're dying."

On tobacco control, the AMA urged adoption by the federal government of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Treaty and announced its support for recent recommendations of the federal Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health. The ICSH called for the establishment of a National Tobacco Quitline network, an extensive anti-tobacco advertising campaign that calls for all federally-funded health care programs to cover evidence-based counseling and medications for tobacco cessation, provide training for clinicians to help their patients quit, and implement a cigarette tax to fund the measures.