Is Smoking The Leading Cause
of Preventable Deaths?
By Nic Samojluk
Recently I received a communication by Email fron the ADRA office describing their support for the "World No Tobacco Day." The Seventh-day Adventist organization has a long history in the humanitarian effort of helping smokers kick the addictive tobacco habit. In this Email, which I am including below, the author claimed that the tobacco use is still the "leading cause of preventable deaths around the world." This statement surprised me a bit, since, although this was true four decades ago, the claim is no longer valid. This prompted me to write to ADRA hoping that they would clarify their claim. I received an initial response, which did not satisfy me, and I followed up with another communication citing statistics as an evidence that their claim was, according to my view, in error. I am still waiting for a follow-up response. Read the main section of the original ADRA Email, and the exchange of Emails that followed and decide who to believe!
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"Silver Spring, Maryland: In support of World No Tobacco Day on May 31, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is joining the World Health Organization (WHO) in calling for a total ban on the marketing, advertising, promotion, and sponsorship of tobacco and tobacco-related products.
ADRA's World No Tobacco Day 2008 campaign titled 'Cigarettes Make Dangerous Playmates' is echoing calls made by WHO to protect young people against the aggressive marketing practices of the tobacco industry by asking policy makers, non-governmental organizations, and the general public to support a complete ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship. Banning tobacco advertising is the most effective way of protecting young people from an industry that spends tens of billions of dollars on marketing every year, says WHO.
'Tobacco usage is still the leading cause of preventable deaths around the world,' said Charles Sandefur, president of ADRA International. 'ADRA is committed to reducing and, ultimately, eliminating the number of deaths caused by tobacco consumption. For this reason, ADRA is working around the world to save lives, by raising awareness about the dangers of smoking, helping smokers quit, and ensuring that millions of others never start.' ...
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Dear Charles Sandefur:
Thanks for keeping me updated on the great humanitarian work ADRA is working around the world. You state in your email that "Tobacco usage is still the leading cause of preventable deaths around the world, said Charles Sandefur, president of ADRA International." Is this information factual? Isn't the practice of abortion the most preventable cause of the deaths of humans? Could you cite the figures to support your statement? Abortion is responsible for nearly 1.5 million deaths a year. [in the U.S.] Is Tobacco causing more deaths than that? Are we as a church purposely ignoring the abortion issue because some of our hospitals are engaged in this morally questionable business? If we let the guilty rapist live, should we not let the innocent unborn live as well? Isn't it time for the church to speak on behalf of those who can't defend themselves?
Nic Samojluk
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Dear Mr. Samojluk,
Thank you for sharing your concerns with ADRA. I am glad that you are receiving the updates about our work around the world and we truly appreciate your support. Pastor Sandefur has asked me to reply to your e-mail.
The statistics on the issue of tobacco and smoking are clear and widely available. According to the London-based Oxford Health Alliance, a global network of experts representing various health disciplines who are trying to reduce the global impact of several major chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and some cancers), tobacco usage claims 5 million lives every year. This statistic was quoted in the latest press release you received. By 2020, the Alliance expects that figure to climb to 10 million. Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO), the principal authority of the United Nations specializing on international public health matters, also reported in its WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008 that more than 5 million deaths worldwide are attributed to tobacco use, more than tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. I encourage you to verify those statistics personally when you have a moment.
We realize that there's an ongoing lively debate around the issue of abortion. However, the focus of our press release is on the dangers of tobacco and the fact that tobacco companies continue to target the younger generations.
Thank you for contacting us and, again, we appreciate your support.
Regards,
Hearly Mayr
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Dear Hearly Mayr,
Thank you for your letter. You state that worldwide "tobacco usage claims 5 million lives every year." This figure is impressive, and we have ample reason to be concerned, and I commend you for doing something about this. Nevertheless, have you compared these statistics with the loss of human life worldwide due to abortion? "22 million legal abortions, plus "nine million [that] were not reported," and "10-22 million 'clandestine' abortions," gives us a total of "between 36 and 53 million abortions" [Source: http://www.abortionfacts.com/Statistics/world_statistics.asp ], which means that the deaths attributed to abortion worldwide are between seven and ten time higher than those connected with smoking, yet we Adventists fail to address this issue and even allow some of our hospitals to provide for elective abortion services. Notice also that those who die from smoking related illnesses, have lost on the average four or five years of their lives, while those who are aborted are deprived of their entire life span.
I have detected a disconnect between our SDA attitude towards smoking and our position dealing with abortion. We have championed our fight against the smoking habit because it tends to shorten the life of smokers, yet we tend to turn a blind eye when it comes to deprive the unborn of their entire existence. Does this makes sense to you? I chose this topic for my doctoral dissertation in religion and discovered things that shocked me no end. Back in 1970, for example, the then president of the General Conference publicly declared that our SDA church was "leaning towards abortion" because there was too much hunger and overpopulation in the world. I also discovered that James White, Ellen White, and the early SDA pioneers did condemn the practice of abortion in the strongest terms and labelled it as murder. If it is murder, and we allow our hospitals to engage in this moral atrocity, then how can we sill claim to be the "Remnant Church with the last message to a perishing world?" [See http://www.sdaforum.com/page13.html ]
Nic Samojluk
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Read also the following posting:
Mind If I Smoke?
http://www.sdaforum.com/page36.html
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