Health

Is the FDA Tobacco Bill the "Altria Earnings Protection Act"?

by Anne Landman — January 15, 2009 - 3:42pm

A bill to give the U.S.

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MoneyWeek, January 16, 2009

Menthol Cigarettes: Too Cool to Quit?

by Anne Landman — January 9, 2009 - 3:07pm

A study of nearly 1,700 smokers attending a quit-smoking clinic at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) found that menthol cigarette smokers have a harder time quitting than people who smoke non-m

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Newswise, January 9, 2009

Journalism Group Offers Fake News Training

by Diane Farsetta — January 5, 2009 - 4:30pm

When television stations take the "'quick and dirty' route to health news coverage" by airing sponsored videos produced by public relations firms or other companies, it's a real problem, writes journalism professor Gary Schwitzer. For example, Ivanhoe Broadcast News (which was mentioned in the Center for Media and Democracy's "Fake TV News" report) puts out "single source stories with one spokesman from one institution touting one idea," complete with PR contacts.

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Schwitzer health news blog, January 2, 2009

Fashionable Cigarette Marketing Tactic Gets the Boot

by Anne Landman — December 22, 2008 - 4:35pm

Imperial Tobacco has been paying out cash incentives and lavishing corporate entertainment on owners of trendy clothing stores and hair boutiques in Adelaide, South Australia, to get them to sell Peter Stuyvesant brand cigarettes in special displays amid their hip merchandise.

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Sunday Mail (South Australia) December 14, 2008

Smokers Can Sue Tobacco Companies for Fraud over "Light Cigarettes"

by Anne Landman — December 15, 2008 - 5:22pm

The U.S. Supreme Court has given a green light to smokers to sue tobacco companies over the fraudulent marketing of "light," "ultralight" and "low tar" cigarettes. Cigarette companies are currently facing around 40 such lawsuits. For decades, advertising lulled smokers into believing that so-called "light" and "low tar" cigarettes were better for their health. Smokers in Maine, however, sued Philip Morris, charging that the company was aware for decades that smokers compensate for lower levels of tar and nicotine by taking longer and deeper puffs. Philip Morris argued that the Federal Trade Commission's endorsement of machine testing for tar and nicotine levels in cigarettes, started in the 1960s, should relieve them of fraud charges. The FTC recently abandoned its testing method, though, after concluding that it's flawed because machines don't take into account how smokers adjust their smoking behavior when using cigarettes with lower levels of nicotine.

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Bloomberg.com, December 15, 2008

The Other O.J. Defense

by Sheldon Rampton — December 9, 2008 - 9:02pm

When Forbes.com wrote last winter about the proper diet for preventing colds and the flu, the article included advice from nutritionist and former TV host Lisa Hark to drink orange juice. As Tom Avril points out, however, "vitamin C's value as a cold-fighter is unclear," and "Hark failed to mention" that she "was being paid by the Florida orange industry to promote the health benefits of its product." Hark says what she did was common practice.

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Philadelphia Inquirer, November 25, 2008

New Law: Secondhand Smoke Exposure is a Form of Domestic Violence

by Anne Landman — December 9, 2008 - 10:19am

The Philippines has enacted a law that treats the exposure of women to secondhand smoke in the home as a form of domestic violence punishable by law. Under the law, a woman can seek a protection order requiring her partner to stop smoking around her.

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ABS-CBN News, Philippines December 5, 2008

Philip Morris a Civil Rights Victim?

by Anne Landman — December 5, 2008 - 2:52pm

Arguing an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Jesse Williams, a African American man who died of lung cancer after smoking Marlboros for 42 years, Philip Morris (PM) lawyers likened the company to a civil rights victim.

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Mother Jones, December 4, 2008

Fake Drug News Online, Without Risk Information

by Diane Farsetta — December 5, 2008 - 9:58am

A consumer group filed a complaint against the medical device company Medtronic, because an online video promoting one of the company's products "did not make consumers aware of the risks, warnings, precautions or side effects" associated with the product. The video, which was posted to the YouTube website, was produced for Medtronic by the broadcast PR firm VNR-1 Communications.

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Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minnesota), December 3, 2008

Another Sickening Partnership: The CEO of City of Hope Profits From Causing and Curing Disease

by Anne Landman — December 4, 2008 - 3:40pm

Topics: Ethics, Health, Tobacco

An earlier PRWatch blog exposed an unseemly partnership between the American Heart Association and Rite Aid Drug Stores after AHA teamed with Rite Aid to promote the "Go Red for Women" campaign to increase awareness of heart disease in women. AHA selected Rite Aid as its partner for "Go Red" even though Rite Aid sells cigarettes, a leading cause of heart disease. This bizarre alliance gave Rite Aid the ability to brag publicly that it was "taking a stand against heart disease in women" while simultaneously displaying "healthy heart" posters alongside cigarette displays in its stores across the country. In another unseemly alliance, it was revealed that Eugene Trani, the President of Virginia Commonwealth University, which operates a medical center, school of public health and medical school, was found to be accepting a $40,000 annual retainer, plus fees totaling $3,500 and stock options, for serving on the board of the Universal Corporation, a leading global supplier of tobacco leaf.