PHM-Exch> Smokescreens: How Working Kills Smokers (3)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Susan Rosenthal <susan at susanrosenthal.com>

The point of my article as announced in PHM-exch is quite clear -
individual behaviors are targeted as the primary cause of sickness in order
to hide the primary role of social factors.

One falls into the victim-blaming trap when onw says, "There is little
doubt that smoking causes lung cancer."
Scientifically this is just plain wrong.
Smoking can and does contribute to lung cancer, but it is not a definitive
cause above and beyond all other causes.
The most significant contribution to ill health is not smoking but class
oppression.
As I wrote in Inequality: The root source of
sickness<http://susanrosenthal.com/articles/america-in-crisis/inequality-the-root-source-of-sickness>
:

"A study of 282 metropolitan areas in the United States found that the
greater the difference in income, the more the death rate rose for all
income levels, not just for the poor. Researchers calculated that reducing
income inequality to the lowest level found in the United States would save
as many lives as would be saved by eradicating heart disease or by
preventing all deaths from lung cancer, diabetes, motor vehicle crashes,
HIV infection, suicide and homicide combined. Even greater benefits would
flow from eliminating class inequality entirely."  (Lynch, J.W. et. al.
(1998). Income inequality and mortality in metropolitan areas of the United
States. *Am J Public Health*. Vol. 88, pp.1074-1080.)

It doesn't matter how old are the research and the argument. Both
remain useful in combating the continued deterioration of social health and
the continued efforts to blame individual behaviors like smoking.
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