May 8, 2008 — An expert panel’s new quit-smoking guideline says more smokers would quit if their doctors offered them both counseling and medication — and if health plans covered the expense.
The official 256-page U.S. Public Health Service guideline comes from a panel of 37 experts who reviewed some 8,700 scientific articles — about 2,700 of them published since the last guideline came out in 2000.
What’s different? More hope, says panel chairman Michael C. Fiore, MD, MPH, founder and director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention.