Letters to the Editor - Sept. 21, 2009

Hypocritical to put tobacco under FDA

Regarding "FDA oversight means public health victory on tobacco" (Editorial, June 29): The task of the FDA is to protect customers from dangerous products. If a new drug were tested today that is found to have an almost negligible positive benefit as a mood elevator but has side effects of COPD, limb amputation, cancer and early death, it would be eliminated out of hand.

However, the FDA is now tasked with the impossible job of "regulating the manufacture ... of cigarettes and other tobacco products in a way that will save lives." Utter hogwash. Tobacco is dangerous and cannot be made un-dangerous. Placing the FDA in the hypocritical position of pretending that regulation can make it safer undermines the legitimacy of the agency in the important job of regulating food and drugs.

The same editorial states that tobacco kills and sickens many Americans, "costing the health system $96 billion per year, making it a problem for all of us. That's why the federal government needed to step up and play a larger role." This presupposes the socialist position that an individual who exhibits bad personal behavior becomes entitled carte blanche to his neighbor's wallet to pay him for the consequences of his behavior.

I don't smoke, and I pray my children will never smoke, but I don't have the audacity to suppose myself able to tell my neighbor that he may not breathe smoky air if he so chooses. I can think of nothing else more exemplary of personal freedom.

--William D. Strinden, MD, Lufkin, Texas

The print version of this content appeared in the Sept. 28, 2009 issue of American Medical News.

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