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The smoking debate

The English smoking ban is now a mere month away. Optician this week launches its 'Smoking and Vision' campaign. At a recent lunchtime debate, sponsored by Transitions, we asked professionals from a number of backgrounds if it is really an optometrist's job to discuss smoking with patients. Here we present the edited highlights

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'Smoking also affects blood flow, which of course is closely linked to vision, and indirectly it can be linked with several eye diseases, including glaucoma and cataracts.

'Something I find interesting is that in the late 1980s, when I trained, we were encouraged to ask patients if they smoked. This seems to have fallen by the wayside. UK practitioners seem uncomfortable asking, "Do you smoke?" and then, "Are you aware what there is out there to help you?" Yet smoking is 100 per cent recognised as the strongest controllable risk factor for a big number of eye diseases.'

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