Colleague Hopes Peter Jennings’ Death Will Inspire Smokers To Quit

By John Voket

Newtown residents, especially those who smoke cigarettes, may be taking a harder and more serious look at their habit and their own health following the news that Peter Jennings recently succumbed to lung cancer, and that Dana Reeve, widow of actor and medical research advocate Christopher Reeve, is now fighting the insidious disease.

ABC News medical correspondent Dr David Katz acknowledges that smokers who quit, no matter how long they have smoked, can regain a significant level of functionality and integrity in the tissues impacted by the habit. But, as is evidenced in the unfortunate case of Dr Katz’s colleague, ABC news anchorman Peter Jennings, the risk of developing lung or respiratory system cancers remains elevated for the rest of a reformed smoker’s life.

Last Monday, just hours after the announcement that Mr Jennings had lost his battle with lung cancer, the local physician who reports on health issues for ABC News sat down with The Bee to discuss concerns ranging from diminishing the risk of lung cancer and smoking cessation to the widespread public health benefits he hopes to see resulting from projects at the Derby-based Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center.

As director of that center, as well as in his capacity as associate clinical professor of public health and director of medical studies in public health for the Yale University School of Medicine, Dr Katz said he still considers his personal work on medical research being done at Griffin Hospital to be his primary motivator.

“Here we oversee clinical research directed at practical benefits in the real world,” Dr Katz said. “We look at things like nutrition, physical activity, behavior change, smoking cessation, and other ways to get innovations and health improvement practices into communities.”

For example, Dr Katz’s latest study related to diabetes is engaging the participation of church congregation members from the inner-city neighborhoods of New Haven and Bridgeport. Through the centers of worship, Dr Katz and his staff are accessing hard-to-reach and underserved populations that do not receive the level of health care they should.

In discussing Mr Jennings’ untimely death, Dr Katz said he hopes the news anchor’s well-documented smoking habit and his subsequent high-profile battle with lung cancer with will help inspire the millions of Americans who still believe they are dodging the cancer bullet to quit.

“I’m new to ABC and didn’t have a chance to work with Peter very much, but my other close colleagues there, Charlie Gibson and Tim Johnson who are friends of Mr Jennings, are the ones who are suffering right now,” Dr Katz said. “It’s such an untimely loss because he was such a patriarch at ABC, but I’ve already suggested to the producers to do something on what’s new and promising in the world of smoking cessation because the people who watch ABC are going to be thinking about it right now.”

Referring to the opportunity to reach people during this time, what he refers to as a “teachable moment,” Dr Katz believes the late ABC News anchor would want his death to become a means of inspiring positive change well beyond the period of grieving following his passing.

Mr Jennings began his career in television during a time when cigarette smoking was still socially acceptable to the point where images of the newsman balancing a notebook and cigarette were occasionally published or even broadcasted. According to Dr Katz, the anchorman eventually heeded the call to give up cigarettes, and did so successfully until the tragic events of September 11 caused him to revert to his old habit.

While the local physician cannot ever be sure that it was the reactivation of his smoking that brought on the lung cancer that cut Peter Jennings life short, he asserted that no matter what a person’s age, or how long they have smoked, now is always the right time to quit.

“It’s never too late,” Dr Katz said. “And the earlier you quit, the greater the benefits. You know once you are four or five years out from quitting smoking you start to reapproximate the health you would have had if you didn’t smoke in the first place.”

Dr Katz is quick to point out that the cancer risk never goes away entirely, and that there was a certain ambiguity in Mr Jennings’ case because he gave up cigarettes for quite a long time before 9/11.

“It certainly is a testimony to his humanity. Peter was such a professional that it may have been hard to see the emotion behind the anchor persona, but during 9/11 he apparently started smoking again because [the incidents] were so distressing to him,” Dr Katz observed.

At the Yale-Griffin PRC, Dr Katz’s staff and colleagues have already helped provide hundreds of patients with the tools to help them quit smoking. The center’s Tailored Interventions for Smoking Cessation (TISC) study was based upon the idea that in order to quit smoking, different folks need different strokes.

The TISC page on the prevention center’s website indicates there are at least seven barriers that people face when trying to quit smoking, and some face more than others. Among the factors that make quitting smoking more difficult are nicotine dependence, addiction to other chemical substances, depression, anxiety, stress, concern about weight gain, and having family and friends who smoke.

A questionnaire was developed to help identify each participant’s personal barriers, and was used to assign them to receive appropriate therapies to address personal barriers. The available treatments were antidepressant medication, referrals for counseling for depression and chemical dependency, antianxiety medication, nicotine replacement therapy; group counseling sessions, stress management sessions, YMCA membership and weight management classes, and counseling with family members who smoke.

After one year, 42 percent of participants were smoke free. The program was enhanced for use in the workplace, and is currently being offered to Griffin Hospital employees. Plans for making the program available to other organizations, businesses, and the community at large are currently being considered.

However, Dr Katz suggests that anyone reading about the Yale-Griffin PRC in The Bee, who is interested in quitting smoking, or possibly in one of the other current or planned research studies, contact his office at 203-732-1AOK (265).

“Just have [your readers] give us a call and we’ll do everything we can to help them out,” Dr Katz offered. For additional information on the Yale-Griffin PRC, visit the center’s website at www.yalegriffinprc.org.