hankyoreh

a smoker for 32 years who has oral cancer

“I lost one third of my tongue. After 32 years of smoking, I came down with oral cancer,” said Lim Hyeon-yong (55, not his real name), who appears in a testimonial-style anti-smoking advertisement that began showing on South Korean broadcasters on Dec. 22. Lim told his story in a slurred voice, asking viewers to “remember me when you think about smoking.”

A testimonial-style anti-smoking advertisement is one in which a victim of smoking personally describes the hardships he or she has endured. The first such advertisement was made 14 years after late comedian Lee Ju-il appeared in a public service announcement in 2002 and said, “Do cigarettes taste good? They’re poison.”

Lim was a chain smoker, burning through a pack a day for 32 years since shortly after graduating from high school. Lim had been a farmer before coming to the big city to work on construction sites, and he habitually smoked a cigarette whenever his work stressed him out. Since there was no history of cancer in his family and since he had always done manual labor, he thought of himself as being a healthy individual.

Lim quit smoking three years ago when he started feeling dizzy, but by then it was already too late. In April of this year, he started experiencing symptoms in his throat, such as hoarseness in his voice. After that, he was diagnosed with oral cancer, and in June, he had an operation that removed one-third of his tongue.

Doctors grafted some flesh from his thigh to his tongue, but his tongue doesn’t work the way it used to, and he isn’t able to enunciate words properly. The cancer had also spread, and the lymph nodes in his neck had to be removed as well. After a round of chemotherapy, Lim is currently receiving outpatient treatment.

During a meeting with reporters on Dec. 22 at the government office in Sejong City, Lim was asked about his most painful memory. “While I was having chemotherapy, I got ulcers in my mouth, which made it really hard to eat. I was told it was dangerous to lose weight, so I forced down the food even as I was crying,” he said.

“Since I didn’t have any insurance, I spent all the money I had saved on medical expenses. If I could start my life over again, I would never touch a cigarette,” he said.

When asked why he had volunteered to appear in the advertisement, Lim said that he wanted to help people quit smoking so that they didn’t have to suffer the way he had. “I hope that smokers who watch this advertisement will quit,” he said.

Lim Hyeon-yong

The testimonial-style ads were produced by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which said on Dec. 22 that it had been cautious about selecting people to appear in the advertisement, given controversy about the causal relationship between smoking and disease. During the first round of recruitment for people to appear in the anti-smoking advertisements between July and October, the Ministry initially selected 26 candidates. They finally settled on Lim as the most suitable candidate based on four criteria: correlation between smoking and the disease in question, appropriateness and severity, suitability for the advertising campaign and the effectiveness of the advertisement.

In addition to the unconventional television advertisement against smoking, cigarettes with graphic images warning consumers about the harms of smoking will go on sale on Dec. 23 at five convenience stores, including the GS25 at Seoul Station in the Yongsan District of Seoul. Since the pictorial warnings will appear on all packs of cigarettes being produced at cigarette factories after Dec. 23, they will start appearing at shops around the country when the stock of previously produced cigarettes runs out around the middle of January.

“The pictorial warnings on cigarettes were introduced in Canada in 2001 and are currently in use in 101 countries. In major countries where the pictorial warnings have been introduced, studies show that the rate of smoking has decreased on average by 4.2 percentage points,” the Ministry of Health and Welfare said.

The Ministry also said that it would be calling for the National Health Promotion Act to be revised to prevent cigarette vendors from trying to cover up the warning images when they put the cigarettes on display.

By Hwangbo Yon, staff reporter

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