"60 Minutes" To Broadcast
Report On Impotence Among Smokers
CBS News will report on the November
8 edition of "60 Minutes" that a number of researchers have found
that male smokers have significantly higher rates of impotence than nonsmokers.
Male smokers are about twice as likely as nonsmokers to suffer from impotence
according to research conducted by the New England Research Institute and
the Centers for Disease Control.
"There is absolutely no question about it. It causes it very commonly,"
Dr. Cully Carson, chairman of the Urology Department at the University
of North Carolina, told CBS.
Dr. Randolph Smoak, chairman of the American Medical Association, who
also agrees on the link between smoking and impotence, said, "Smoking
does and can cause impotence. We have not paid attention to impotence because
it didn't kill people, but it severely incapacitated men prematurely."
Source: "Add Impotence To The List Of Smokers' Ills," REUTERS,
November 5, 1998.
Advocates, Scientists Warn
Of Link Between Smoking And Impotence
Scientists and public health advocates
have recently increased efforts to educate the public on the links between
smoking and impotence.
A $21 million antismoking campaign in California features an ad linking
smoking to impotence, and asks the question: "Cigarettes - still think
they're sexy?"
CBS "60 Minutes" ran a segment Sunday evening featuring doctors
warning viewers that the impotence rate among smokers is nearly double
the rate for nonsmokers.
Some public health advocates believe that the fear of impotence may
get smokers' attention. Some advocates are finding the subject of impotence
easier to broach in the wake of broad public discussion of anti-impotence
drug Viagra. Carla Agar, of the California Department of Health Services,
comments, "Absent the Viagra debate, impotence wasn't a commonly discussed
topic. I think the discussion surrounding Viagra has allowed us to take
the issue of impotence into the public domain."
Dr. Judith MacKay, of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control, said,
"I only have to mention impotence to an audience and everyone sits
up. We're saying maybe the Marlboro cowboy isn't so virile after all."
Matthew Myers, of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said that warning
smokers of the risk of impotence "could have a powerful effect."
Source: Suein Hwang and Nick Cumming-Bruce, "How Impotence Became Weapon
Against Smoking," WALL STREET JOURNAL, November 9, 1998, p. B1.