Turns out the truth doesn't matter. The New York City Health Department is standing by TV ads that show children allegedly sickened by exposure to second hand smoke. Only problem is, the deathly-ill kids weren't actually known to be exposed to smoke. They were just stock footage of diseased kids.
But the kids in the pictures have the same diseases caused by second-hand smoke, so that's good enough for the Health Department.
It wouldn't be good enough, though, for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) according to the president of the American Academy of Advertising.
"If they were selling a commercial product, the FTC would surely regulate this misleading ad," said Jef Richards, who is also Professor of Advertising at University of Texas at Austin.
Harm Reduction
In an apartment building on the Upper West Side of New York, 74th and Broadway, there is yet another controversy surrounding smoking and non-smoking residents.
While most of these issues involve smelling cigarette smoke from one apartment in another adjacent apartment, the debate this time is about the common area by the elevator. A couple doesn't want its four-year-old child to be exposed to the second-hand smoke and wants the smoking residents to stop smoking.
A press release in the New York Sun caught ACSH off guard with its negative coverage of Swedish smokeless tobacco, also known as snus. Sweden is the only country in the European Union (EU) that is permitted to market smokeless tobacco because it joined after the EU placed a ban on the product, and was given an exemption.
This week's announcement by Philip Morris that it plans a "global blitz" to dramatically increase the number of cigarette smokers around the world represents the ultimate public health nightmare.
Bupropion, a drug taken for smoking cessation and prescribed most often for adults, is yielding only short-lived results in adolescents according to an article in the November issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Each year 1.5 million adolescents in the U.S. light up for the first time and 416,000 of those go on to make it a daily habit. The numbers are staggering and unfortunately our current cessation treatment methods are showing little success, and even that success is often short-lived.
November 15th marks the thirty-first annual "Great American Smokeout," a campaign initially undertaken by the American Cancer Society, whose goal was to encourage smokers to quit -- even if only for one day -- hoping this would lead to prolonged abstinence from cigarettes. Through educating smokers about the wide spectrum of smoking-related illnesses, promoting cessation medications and other quitting techniques, restricting areas where smokers can light up, and raising the price of ciggies, the hope is to get the over 40 million Americans still addicted to quit.
This piece first appeared in the New York Post and was noted on NY1 Itch for that day.
The days of deception on the health risks of cigarettes aren't over after all -- although now the distortion's coming from the "good guys."
This morning's New York Times op-ed "A Two-Cigarette Society" by attorney David G. Adams made me think I was reading The Onion. Adams argued that we should have two types of cigarettes, one with and one without nicotine. He is proposing that we start young adults out on nicotine-free cigarettes, so they don't get hooked.
An article in Skeptic Volume 13, Number 3 by Sidney Zion quotes ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan on exaggerations about secondhand smoke's effects:
An October 9, 2007 article by Becky Bell on the website of Southern Arkansas University describes a visit by ACSH's Jeff Stier to participate in a panel on smokeless tobacco as a means of harm reduction:
Smoking can kill, but nicotine addicts might have a healthier outcome if they choose a smokeless form of tobacco according to Jeff Stier, Esq., Associate Director of the American Council on Science and Health.
Yesterday's style section of the New York Times splashed an unappealing picture on its cover: two models backstage at the Prada fashion show in Milan, one on her Blackberry, both smoking cigarettes.
In the past year, there has been uproar in the fashion world about the health of its cat-walking beauties. Last September, for Madrid's fashion week, Spain required every model to have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of at least 18, otherwise the aspiring Twiggys were banned from walking in the fashion shows. But not every skinny model suffers from an eating disorder; some are naturally wiry.
That the tobacco industry is dead set on increasing its appeal to young people should by now be no news to anyone. What seems to surprise Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen (Oct. 1, "Killing the Consumer") is that many magazines are enablers for Big Tobacco.