Tobacco Companies Highlight Deadly Health Effects of Smoking
December 01, 2017|11:13 a.m.| Marcus Plescia and Erin Boles Welsh
By
the time the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving in 1621, tobacco was
an established agricultural commodity. John Rolfe is credited with introducing
commercial cultivation of tobacco in Jamestown in 1612, with the
first shipment sent to England in 1617. Even then, critics raised concerns
about the adverse health effects of tobacco, including King James I, who
described it as “loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the
brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black and stinking fume thereof,
nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”
Today,
tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United
States, claiming close to 500,000 lives and costing approximately $170 billion in
healthcare expenses each year. This accounts for more deaths than “murder, AIDS,
suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol combined.”
This
last statement comes directly from one of five corrective statements that,
beginning Nov. 26, tobacco companies will be required to publish for six months
in newspapers and on national television. In 2006, a federal
court held that cigarette manufacturers and tobacco trade
organizations had systematically deceived and defrauded the American public, finding
them guilty of breaking civil racketeering laws, misleading the public about
the dangers of smoking, and marketing to children. Corrective statements from
the tobacco industry will acknowledge the health hazards of smoking and
secondhand smoke, the addictiveness of nicotine, the lack of health benefits in
light or mild cigarettes, as well as deliberate efforts to engineer cigarettes
to maximize addiction. These statements are intended to dissuade tobacco
companies from future misconduct. However, after years of abuse,
misinformation, and malpractice, we deserve more than an apology. We deserve
change.
Despite
significant progress in reducing smoking, tobacco use remains one of the most
important public health concerns of our time, causing cancer, heart disease, emphysema,
and many other health conditions that contribute to premature death and
diminish quality of life. In order to educate the public and prevent these
outcomes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funds tobacco control
programs in every state, helping to reduce youth access to tobacco and ban
smoking in public places. In many states, efforts are underway to raise the minimum
age of tobacco sales to 21, increase the tobacco tax by $1.50 per pack, pass
comprehensive smoke-free laws, and increase funding for tobacco prevention and
cessation programs. State tobacco control programs and health departments will
continue to lead these efforts with the support of public health leadership
across the nation.
Preventing the tobacco industry from
engaging in future misconduct and misrepresentation is critical. But we need
more than just a statement or apology. We know what works to reduce tobacco use
and save lives, and hope that these court-ordered corrective statements are
just the beginning in galvanizing the public and policymakers to make further
strides toward ending our nation’s longstanding and lethal addiction to
tobacco.
Marcus Plescia is chief medical
officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Erin
Boles Welsh is chair of the Tobacco Control Network and Tobacco Control Program
Manager at the Rhode Island Department of Health.