Indonesian clinic touts smoking as cancer cure FEATURE 04/14/2011

Indonesian clinic touts smoking as cancer cure

FEATURE

04/14/2011
JAKARTA — An Indonesian woman exhales cigarette smoke into the mouth of a gaunt, naked patient at a Jakarta clinic, where tobacco is openly touted as a cancer cure.

The Western patient is suffering from emphysema, a condition she developed from decades of smoking. Along with cancer and autism, it’s just one of the ailments the Griya Balur clinic claims it can cure with cigarettes.

“I missed this,” says the woman, a regular customer, with an American accent, as Phil Collins’ “I Can Feel It” blares in the background.

Griya Balur would be shut down in many parts of the world, but not in Indonesia, one of the developing-country new frontiers for big tobacco as it seeks to replace its dwindling profits in the health-conscious West..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110414com6.html