Comparative Reasoning 

Required Resources

Read/review the following resources for this activity:

• Textbook: Chapter 12
• Lesson 1, 2
• The Doctors' Choice is America's Choice": The Physician in US Cigarette Advertisements, 1930-1953Links to an external site.
• The Opioid Epidemic: It's Time to Place Blame Where It BelongsLinks to an external site.
• Minimum of 1 scholarly source (in addition to the textbook and noted readings)

Introduction

The medical profession has a muddled and contradictory association with its approach toward the tobacco industry. While the profession now firmly opposes to smoking and vigorously publicizes the serious, even fatal, health hazards associated with smoking, this was not always so. Advertisements for tobacco products, including cigarettes "… became a ready source of income for numerous medical organizations and journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), as well as many branches and bulletins of local medical associations" (Wolinsky & Brune, 1994). Physicians and reference to doctors and smoking were once common in tobacco industry advertisements. The story of physicians and promotion of smoking can be found in "The Doctors' Choice Is America's Choice" (Gardner & Brandt, 2006).

The role of physicians in the current opioid crisis is now under scrutiny on television (Farmer, 2019) by trade publications (King, 2018), peer-reviewed journals (deShazo, et al, 2018), and by physicians themselves (Hirsch, 2019).

Initial Post Instructions

For the initial post, research the history of the association of doctors with tobacco companies and tobacco advertising. Read about the association of doctors with the opioid crisis. Then, address the following:

• In what way are the two situations comparable?
• In what way are they different?
• Apply the concept of moral equivalence. Is the conduct of doctors in relation to smoking and the tobacco industry morally equivalent to the conduct of doctors in the opioid crisis? Explain your position and be very specific.

References

DeShazo, R.D., Johnson, M., Eriator, Ike, Rodenmeyer, K. (2018). Backstories on the U.S. opioid epidemic. Good intentions gone bad, an industry gone rogue, and watch dogs gone to sleep. The American Journal of Medicine. Retrieved from https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(18)30084-6/fulltext

Farmer, B. M. (2019, August 25). The opioid epidemic: Who is to blame? 60 Minutes. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-opioid-epidemic-who-is-to-blame-60-minutes-2019-08-25/

Gardner, M. N., & Brandt, A. M. (2006). The doctors' choice is America's choice: the physician in U.S. cigarette advertisements, 1930-1953. American Journal of Public Health, 96(2), 222–232. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2005.066654

Hirsch, R. (2017). The opioid epidemic: It’s time to place blame where it belongs. Missouri Medicine. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140023/ 

Wolinsky H., & Brune, T. (1994). The serpent on the staff: The unhealthy politics of the American Medical Association. Tarcher/Putnam.