By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Posted: Monday, June 19, 2006
LETTER
Publication Date: June 19, 2006
FROM: DR. ELIZABETH M. WHELAN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH
Dear Mr. Willard:
The front-page story of this week's edition of the New York Times Magazine ("If It's Good for Philip Morris, Can It Also Be Good for Public Health?" by Joe Nocera) portrays Philip Morris USA as a responsible tobacco company that is evolving into an advocate for improving public health. It repeatedly suggests that Philip Morris's actions are consistent with the goals of anti-tobacco groups and public health advocates.
In an effort to evaluate this claim of honesty and openness, I recently reviewed the Philip Morris USA's "Youth Smoking Prevention" website and I am writing to you in order to express my deep concerns about the disinformation -- and lack of information -- on these webpages and to pose to you a number of questions that suggest the need for further revision of the text on your site.
First, let me say, as someone who has been immersed for decades in the literature on smoking and health -- and on the tobacco industry's ongoing pattern of denial that cigarettes are hazardous to health -- it is fascinating to me to see even the cursory acknowledgment on the PM pages of the health hazards of smoking. Just ten years ago that would never have happened. But the effort is far short of what it needs to be:
?In the one paragraph on your site devoted to the topic of "Cigarette Smoking and Disease," you and your colleagues note that smoking can cause "serious diseases" -- and you specifically mention lung cancer. But that is like taking one step forward and twenty steps back.
Why do you not mention other risks associated with cigarette smoking, including increased risk of blindness (for example, macular degeneration), hearing loss, and a full spectrum of other malignancies over and above lung cancer, including cancers of the oral cavity, esophagus, bladder, cervix, pancreas, and other sites?
If you're serious about catching the attention of youth, why do the PM pages not mention the causal relationship between erectile dysfunction and cigarette smoking?
?Also, why, in PM's new age of "full disclosure," do the webpages not specifically detail the essential dimensions of risk, namely, dose and duration of exposure?
In PM's judgment, at what exposure to cigarettes does a smoker incur risk? What is the "risk level" in terms of numbers of cigarettes smoked and for how many years? At what point do the spectrum of risks associated with cigarette smoking, in PM's opinion, become irreversible? (Fuller details on smoking's health effects can be found in my organization's book, Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn't Tell You.)
?The theme of your smoking prevention is that PM does not want "kids" to smoke.
Why shouldn't "kids" smoke? Why are kids, who should not smoke, so different from adults who can smoke? If there were no laws purportedly prohibiting "kids" under eighteen or nineteen from purchasing cigarettes, would you still discourage them from smoking, and if so, why? PM is selling and promoting cigarettes, and you have never explained why it is acceptable for people over eighteen to smoke but not those under eighteen.
Since your business depends on people purchasing cigarettes, why do you not acknowledge that the unstated, silent message implicit in "We do not want kids to smoke" is: "We do want people over the age of eighteen to smoke"? When you advocate warm and fuzzy communication between parent and child about "not smoking" under eighteen, are you actually suggesting that parents tell kids to wait until they are eighteen until they smoke? This is unclear, as you nowhere state that parents should tell children to make a lifetime commitment not to smoke cigarettes.
?In your "Parent Resource Center," you frequently equate smoking cigarettes with drinking when you tell parents to warn their children of the risks of using "tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs." This suggests that a lifetime of cigarette smoking will pose risks the same as or comparable to social drinking -- a cocktail or two or a couple of glasses of wine per day. Your text further implies to youth that (undefined) "drinking" is on a par with cigarette smoking as a health risk.
Why did you choose to blur the difference between the health effects of moderate social drinking (which may protect health) with the deleterious effects of smoking cigarettes in the manner they are most often used (one or more packs smoked daily)? Why did you not clarify the distinction between these risks? Will you modify your webpages to make this distinction?
?Why do you provide no historical perspective?
The New York Times Magazine suggests that executives of Philip Morris are "ashamed" of their earlier actions and now believe in giving "full disclosure" about the health hazards of cigarettes. If that is so, then why can I find no mention whatsoever on your site of the fact that between January 1954 and the mid-1990s your company and other cigarette manufacturers repeatedly denied the link between smoking and life-threatening diseases -- thus contributing to the premature deaths of tens of millions of Americans?
Indeed, your Youth Smoking Prevention site disingenuously states that PM has always supported youth smoking prevention and that you merely "intensified [y]our efforts in the 1990s." At no point on your website did PM acknowledge a change of position on smoking and health, thus leaving readers who are not familiar with the cigarette industry's long history of denial with the mistaken view that the industry has always been at least somewhat forthcoming about the spectacular health risks of cigarette smoking.
You also note that PM has reduced advertising in magazines "by more than 94%." But you make no note of the extraordinary print advertising expenditure during the 1930-1995 era and the chilling effect those ads had on the media's reporting of the insidious health effects of smoking cigarettes. Why is this the case -- and will you correct this omission?
?You disingenuously state that you support the mandated health warning label on cigarette packs and cigarette advertisements.
Why did you not state the truth? Philip Morris took a leadership role in pressuring Congress to place that warning label on cigarettes in the mid-1960s so that your industry might derive legal protection in litigation from those harmed or killed by your product. Why, in this age of full disclosure, did not PM, instead of saying they "supported" the warning, admit that the so-called "Surgeon General's warning label" (which has nothing to do with the Surgeon General's office) was a primary part of the industry's strategy to protect itself from litigation, by arguing that the industry was "pre-empted" by the mandated label from giving more detailed warnings about the health hazards of smoking cigarettes?
I very much look forward to your responses to my comments and questions.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan
President
American Council on Science and Health
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