"Prevention is better than cure. " Out of a country's health budget, a large proportion should be diverted from treatment to spending on health education and preventative measures. v.36

A government has various responsibilities to its citizens, perhaps the most important would be the health care. There are different approaches to this, namely prevention versus cure. This essay will explain why treatment is superior, using the case of tobacco as a clear example. Firstly, health education has its limits. Over the last twenty years, various western governments have attempted to discourage smokers by placing surgeon’s warnings and revolting pictures. Yet smokers still want to light up, therefore seriously questioning government endeavours of prevention rather than cure. Nevertheless, through the same period cancer treatment has improved considerably even producing beneficial spin-off discoveries for asthma suffers. Therefore treatment is not only more effective, it has also bettered other sectors of society. Secondly, even if prevention has solid evidence of being effective there is the common case of patients suffering by pure chance. For example, it is known that people can suffer from lung cancer having never smoked anything whereas someone smoking twenty a day can escape such illness. Therefore, even having followed government guidance, there would still be a need for treatment. In addition, if funds had been diverted from research for cures to education there would be little to help ‘chance victims’. To conclude, all though smoking has addictive elements, drawing from observations over various years it is clear that prevention has failed considerably. Furthermore, treatment can help those afflicted by pure chance, and even benefit patients with related challenges.