Aug. 27--"If you don't hate tobacco, you need to be in a different occupation."
That directive was issued Tuesday to University of Oklahoma College of Public Health students by Dr. Robert S. Mannel, director of the OU Cancer Institute, during a lecture on "The Future for Cancer Care and Prevention in Oklahoma."
Mannel urged students to do the most they can to thwart smoking and the deadly health effects it produces. Doing so is a tremendous method of cancer prevention, he said.
"Oklahoma has too many people who smoke, and that means we're going the wrong way," he said. "If we can be the master teachers, Oklahomans can live longer."
An 'elective abuse'
As head of the OU Cancer Institute, Mannel chose "tobacco control ... primarily by reducing smoking rates" as the institute's No. 1 goal to prevent and reduce cancer in the state. His address in Oklahoma City was broadcast to OU students in Tulsa.
Mannel said smoking is one way that far too many Oklahomans choose "elective abuses to their bodies" that lead to an early death from lung cancer.
Mannel, an OU Health Sciences Center faculty member, said lung cancer produces more deaths in Oklahoma than any other cancer. To see more of The Oklahoman, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsok.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Oklahoman Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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