Posted on 03/12/2008 10:34:40 AM PDT by Harrius Magnus
States May Warn Doctors to Follow Smoker Treatment Guidelines or be Sued for Medical Malpractice
State health commissioners may soon begin warning about medical malpractice law suits which could be brought by smokers against physicians who fail to follow federal and other guidelines in treating them, putting pressure on the medical profession similar to that put on the tobacco industry by earlier smoker law suits.
Public interest law professor John Banzhaf, whom the media has dubbed a "driving force behind the lawsuits that have cost tobacco companies billions of dollars," and the "law professor who masterminded litigation against the tobacco industry," has written to the health commissioners of the fifty states suggesting that they warn their state's doctors about such law suits based upon a recent article in a leading medical journal and an even more recent study about saving smoker lives.
The letter notes a recent study which shows that physicians are killing more than 40,000 American smokers each year by failing to follow federal guidelines which mandate that the doctor warn the smoking patient about the many dangers of smoking and provide effective medical treatment for the majority who wish to quit.
"The families of any one of those 40,000 victims – or the hundreds of thousands more who suffer heart attacks, strokes, amputations, blindness, or other problems because of their smoking – could sue physicians for malpractice for failing to follow the standard of medical care mandated by these guidelines," says Banzhaf, who serves as Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), America's first antismoking organization.
Indeed, the New York City Department of Health has already warned that "because physician intervention can be so effective, failure to provide optimal counseling and treatment [for smoking] is failure to meet the standard of care – and could be considered malpractice."
Also, a medical journal noted that the "failure of many doctors and hospitals to deal with tobacco use and dependence raises the question of whether this failure could be considered malpractice, given the Public Health Service guidelines' straightforward recommendations, their efficacy in preventing serious disease and cost-effectiveness. . . . a court could have sufficient basis to find that the failure to adequately treat the main cause of preventable disease and death in the US qualifies as a violation of the legal duty that doctors and hospitals owe to patients habituated to tobacco use and dependence.”
The US Public Health Service’s Clinical Practice Guideline for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence provide that “every patient who uses tobacco should be offered at least one of [two] treatments.” Many major guidelines by other respected medical bodies – e.g., the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, etc. – also require that smoking patients receive not just warnings but also treatment, including counseling.
However, as the Partnership for Prevention recently noted, in a report sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the WellPoint Foundation, fewer than 30% of smoking patients receive even the minimal treatment required by the guidelines. The report estimates that this refusal by physicians and hospitals to follow the Guidelines kills more than 40,000 smokers each year.
Banzhaf's letter to the health commissioners suggested that: "Since many in the antismoking community (including hundreds of organizations, many with their own attorneys), as well as lawyers associated with antismoking groups and other lawyers in private practice, are now considering how to proceed with the article’s litigation suggestion, the need to remind doctors of their responsibilities and of their potential legal liability is paramount – especially since their continued refusal to even warn many patients about smoking, much less to follow the guidelines’ requirements of effective intervention, kills over 40,000 patients each year."
"Since physician malpractice kills over 40,000 smokers annually – more than motor vehicle or product liability accidents – it should not be surprising if antismoking lawyers, as well as those in private practice working on contingency fees, find physicians who deliberately flout federal guidelines to be a major target of litigation."
PROFESSOR JOHN F. BANZHAF III Executive Director and Chief Counsel Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) 2013 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20006, USA (202) 659-4310 // http://ash.org
Those who give when it is not always comfortable to do so understand best what true self-sacrifice is, IMO.
Smokers, while partaking of a legal product, a legal activity, are illegally barred from public places, their freedoms are removed, as well as the freedom of the property owner.
A constitutionally sound way to handle those who do not like smoke is to remind them they have the freedom NOT to enter where people are excersizing their freedom to smoke congregate.
Why is it that we allow the Constitution to be ignored? Activists judges and special interests should be told to jump in the lake whenever they even suggest a freedom be corrupted.
Primary care MDs have no shortage of patients these days. They will discharge all of their smokers at the first sleazy lawsuit.
Socialists depend on this sort of reaction to continue removing personal freedoms.
Dependents depend on us now,but if freedoms continue to be removed at the current pace, they will be dependents on the Government for the rest of their lives. Exactly what socialist factions intend, thus the blackmail (the threat of job loss is blackmail of a sort)
If they don’t smoke, it is blamed on second hand smoke. My sister died of kidney cancer- she did not smoke, and neither did her husband. Doctors said it was second hand smoke. My sister-in-law recently fought ovarian cancer- she doesn’t smoke, nor does my brother- in her case they did say genes (her mother died of cancer) but they had to add- second hand smoke may have been a factor. They reach and reach to blame everything on smoking.
I even had a discussion with the owner of an adult beverage distribution center and he made the statement that he hoped that the state would ban smoking in bars and restaurants. I looked him in the eye and asked him why. He stated that he didn’t like smoking. So, I pointed out that he owned the property, which meant he could ban smoking any time he wanted.
He admitted that his customers mostly smoked and that his business would be hurt if he voluntarily banned it. He couldn’t understand that his business would be hurt by a ban enforced by the state.
Needless to say, I live in a heavy Democrat area!
Oh, and welcome to FReerepublic.
Carolyn
Another person who does not wish to take responsibility for their own prejudicial actions. Don't like smokers? Why, just call up old Uncle Sam so you don't have to dirty your own hands. LOL!
Thank you CSM. It's nice to be here.
I'd like to see a study on this and some proof that smoking is what caused this. I have NEVER heard of this before this article.
Looking at the tip of a lit cigarrette is as bad as looking at a daytime eclipse. That's got to be it. Or all that smoke that get's in the eyes..
Now I understand why I was harrassed to no end the last time I was in the hospital.
I was admitted because of a blood sugar issue, not a "smoking related" issue. From the time I got in there until I left the nurses insisted I NEEDED a patch because I wouldn't be able to smoke. I didn't want to sdmoke, I just wanted to get out of there.
The one that woke me up at 6am really took the cake. I had finally been able to actually get more than an hour's sleep at that point and she woke me up to offer me a patch. That was the ONLY reason she woke me. I blew a gasket at her. And told her point blank that the only time I had even thought of smoking a cigarette in the 18 hours I had been there was when one of them claimed I NEEDED a patch. My language was definitely not ladylike at that point and I offered no apologies for it, in fact I told her point blank I would not apologize for my language.
When she came in later, I also put the Doctor in her place over it. Doc told me the nurse complained about my behavior and my attitude was too damned bad about her. Me being a smoker had no bearing upon why I was there and since I was paying for being there I should not be harrassed about something unrelated to me being there. It was so very obvious that it was killing that doctor to have to agree that I was right and the nurses (and hospital policy) was wrong.
That was 18 months ago, I was 46 and all I needed to do was change my diet slightly. Every doctor I had to deal with over that incident actually had to choke when making the admission that me being a smoker had absolutely NO bearing on what was wrong. They have all been so brainwashed into the idea that all smokers are unhealthy they couldn't equate what I had done the day before with someone that smokes. I had spent the better part of the day harvesting a crop of habanero peppers, and the rest of the day and evening prepping them to make jelly.
According to the propaganda, a smoker can't do any physical labor.
LOL!!! You are correct, even though I'm laughing. We weren't laughing in the kitchen last night, though.
The gal that "runs" the kitchen asked me what I had at 8:20 - I had 3 orders of fries and 2 hot dogs. She then asked my husband who had 3 burgers. We still had 2 specials in addition. We all just scratched our heads at how many people actually took an attitude because we were done cooking.
As I said, when taken in the entire scheme of things, we all really do enjoy ourselves and willingly show up every Wednesday. The 3 of us are such a good team in the kitchen that I keep getting undermined when I push that we need some other folks to step up to the plate and help out.
And if a patient is going to continue to smoke, (some leave the building as the fire marshal will fine the hospital $$$), it's dangerous to also be on the patch.
Now if the federal government starts telling docs they are not going to pay his portion of the hospital bill unless he prescribes the patch, doctors are going to order it.
Right now the federal government is sending out random surveys to patients who were hospitalized. From that the government will gauge what the rate of reimbursement for Medicare patients will be. And what the federal government pays private insurance will follow suit.
That’s really scary. But it is jacka$$es$ like the guy that wrote this press release that have caused all of this. He is an ambulance chasing lawyer that actually makes John Edwards look like a good guy - Banzhaf is really that bad.
As to when I was in hospital, not a single doctor prescribed any NRT, it was ONLY the nurses INSISTING that I HAD to have it. Every single one of them refused to accept my statement that I DID NOT want to smoke. Every one of them was of the mindset that because I admitted being a smoker I was some kind of addict that had to be medicated.
I don’t like using broadbrushes, but that experience really gave me a bad taste about nurses being control freaks. My personal physician and his nurse both agreed with me (even while telling me I need to quit smoking) that the hospital nurses were totally out of line. As he was the former head of the ER at that hospital, I am sure his complaint about my treatment there did hold some sway. Hopefully the next smoker in there for a non-smoking related problem received a bit more respect in their treatment than I did.
A good team can pull off even the most daunting task - seemingly with ease. What is not necessarily understood by some observers is exactly what teamWork really means.
Years ago, I was part of a support team for engineering staff. Each month we'd all toil together barely making deadlines. At the end of each month we'd explain to management how much we needed to hire another person. Yet no one was hired.
We mistakenly thought, if they saw our hard work, all the overtime and missed lunches (all our good teamwork), the powers that be would see and think "those poor dears, let us hire them help" LOL!
After more months than I can remember, our division manager asked just why he should hire us extra help, we were, after all, getting the work done!
Lesson learned.
You're preaching to the choir, my friend!
A month ago, when I once agains attempted to explain to the Admiistrator that we needed more people to step up to the plate and help out in the kitchen because it was costing me and my husband too much in gas to get there everyweek, his solution was to give us gas money.
They're going to be in for a rude awakning on the Wednesday our daughter gets tested for her next belt at Karate school. We can do the cooking on Wednesday because a friend of hers is also in the class and so in the mom who is wiling to do the driving.
But guess what? My civic duty will always take a back seat when it comes to our daughter.
Just lawyers trolling for dollars.
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