CHRONIC Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which is very strongly associated with tobacco smoking, is an epidemic of misery that robs ordinary people of years and quality of life.
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Often striking in the prime of life, it restricts activity, renders sufferers short of breath on increasingly limited activity, and causes them additional misery at times of increasingly frequent exacerbation, best thought of as "lung attacks".
November 19 was World COPD Day, a day to consider those suffering from this disease, for which there remains no cure, even if treatments to relieve symptoms and reduce the frequency of lung attacks are improving.
The most obvious way to reduce the massive economic and personal burden of this disease is to reduce its future incidence, a goal best achieved through preventing the onset of new disease.
I commend and endorse the efforts of those attempting through appropriate legislation to prevent the commencement of smoking in young people, since it is new smokers who will make up the vast majority of future COPD sufferers.
If we can move towards a tobacco free generation now, we will see a fall in the incidence of COPD suffering and disease burden in the future.
A drop in the incidence of heart disease and lung cancer, both better understood in the community already, will also be seen.
— DR GREG HAUG, Respiratory Physician, Launceston.
