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The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on July 12, 2006
The European Journal of Public Health 2007 17(2):162-170; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckl097
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

Smoking

‘It’s interesting how few people die from smoking': Tobacco industry efforts to minimize risk and discredit health promotion

Elizabeth A. Smith

Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, University of California San Francisco San Francisco, CA 94143-0612, USA

Correspondence: Elizabeth A. Smith, Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143-0612, USA, tel: +1 415 502 5238; fax: +1 415 476 6552; e-mail: libby.smith@ucsf.edu

Received February 23, 2006 , accepted May 22, 2006

Background: It is well known that the tobacco industry has placed articles in scientific literature to maintain controversy over the dangers of tobacco use, while claiming that smokers are well-informed about risk. This study illuminates an industry attempt to directly undermine popular understanding of the hazards of smoking using an industry-created organization called Associates for Research in the Science of Enjoyment (ARISE). Methods: Searches of tobacco industry documents contained in the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, British American Tobacco Documents Library, and British Columbia's Tobacco Industry documents were performed as well as searches of the LexisNexis database for news articles on ARISE published between 1989 and 2005. Qualitative analysis focused on industry motives, media strategies, and rhetorical tactics; quantitative content analysis focused on media coverage. Results: Between 1989 and 2005, at least 846 articles appeared in the European, Australian, and US press mentioning ARISE, its members, or its activities. Many of these articles presented two themes: smoking was a healthful ‘pleasure’, and health promotion practices, including cessation, were stressful and unhealthy. Few articles included responses from health advocates, questioned ARISE's claims, or mentioned its funding. Conclusions: ARISE successfully planted stories in the press, designed to allay the health concerns of smokers and to discredit health promotion information and practices. ARISE's later interest in food suggests that counterfactual ‘health’ messages on almost any topic could be promoted similarly, regardless of their implausibility.

Keywords: mass media, smoking cessation, tobacco industry


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