U.S. Could Save 100,000 Lives a Year with Five Basic Preventiv...( Aspirin a Day Other Serv...),Health

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in Partnership for Prevention Education Campaign

WASHINGTON, June 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As Congress tackles health reform, a new public education campaign notes that more than 100,000 lives could be saved every year by investing in five basic preventive services. That includes 45,000 deaths that would be prevented each year if people who could benefit were advised by their doctors to take a daily dose of aspirin to prevent heart disease and 42,000 lives that could be saved a year if doctors offered tobacco cessation counseling.

A print ad in Roll Call, a popular Capitol Hill newspaper, this week asks members of Congress - "If You Could Save 100,000 Lives, Would You Do It?" It spells out how increasing the widespread use of just five services available through a doctor's office - aspirin counseling, tobacco cessation counseling, adult influenza immunization, colorectal screening, and breast cancer screening - would save an estimated 117,600 additional lives a year. More information is available online at www.prevent.org/healthreform .

"Tens of thousands of Americans die needlessly every year because they don't do something as simple as taking an aspirin a day or getting a flu shot," said Robert Gould, Ph.D., president of Partnership for Prevention. "It's time for Congress to remove the barriers that hinder people from getting such services. In many cases, their lives may depend upon it."

A number of obstacles - including lack of coverage as well as co-pay and deductible requirements - currently discourage doctors from providing these services and also discourage many patients from obtaining them," said Gould, a behavioral scientist who was an architect of the highly successful "truth" anti-tobacco marketing campaign. "As a resul
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