After years of denial and deception, the Philip Morris company has admitted that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases. This formal acknowledgment comes far too late but still we must all welcome it. It can be the beginning of clearing the air.
Interpretation
Clinton emphasizes the need to acknowledge harmful truths for progress.
In this quote, William J. Clinton reflects on the long-overdue admission by the Philip Morris company regarding the dangers of cigarette smoking. He highlights the importance of such acknowledgment, suggesting it can lead to positive change and better public health moving forward, despite the tardiness of the recognition.
In practice
During a public health seminar discussing smoking regulations.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
Sugar is the next tobacco, without a doubt, and that industry should be scared. It should be taxed just like tobacco and anything else that can, frankly, destroy lives.
Abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries.
When it comes to health care policy, we keep failing to take seriously the value of human relationships. The cost of this oversight is staggering.
It should be forbidden and severely punished to remove cancer by cutting, burning, cautery, and other fiendish tortures. It is from nature that the disease comes, and from nature comes the cure, not from physicians.
Treat your body like a temple, not a woodshed. The mind and body work together. Your body needs to be a good support system for the mind and spirit. If you take good care of it, your body can take you wherever you want to go, with the power and strength and energy and vitality you will need to get there.
I hope I've contributed something to the mental health field. But I hope people will think - I've had so many wonderful opportunities, I tried to take advantage of them.
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