An interesting take on smoking.

Smoking

10:56:52 PM    

Health Check: 'During the doctors' strike in the 1970s, death rates fell'

"By Jeremy Laurance    (01 September 2003)

Anyone who is in any way prone to a stroke or heart attack should take it very easy this week. Heart specialists will be as rare as hen's teeth. You will find them, should you need one, in Vienna, at the European Society of Cardiology's conference. An estimated 17,000 cardiologists are expected in the city for Europe's largest medical meeting. No doubt those present will shed a tear or two for absent colleagues unable to secure a "sponsorship opportunity" from a drug company, as they sip a glass or two of health-giving red wine. But what they will not be doing is seeing or treating patients.

It is a standing joke among cardiologists that death rates fall during their conferences because fewer of them are out there attempting to cure moribund patients by doing dangerous surgery. The treatment can be worse than the disease.

That lesson was driven home in Britain during the last doctors' strike in the 1970s. Doom mongers predicted that bodies would pile up in the street, but death rates actually fell. ..."

10:55:26 PM