Word Play CANCER FOR CHRISTMAS!: Old ads proclaim the virtues of smoking
-century, the tobacco industry, guided by the PR gurus at H&K, was learning to divert attention all the time. In 1968, an executive from H&K reiterated the best media angles for the industry magazine, Tobacco and Health Research: “The most important type of story is that which casts doubt in the cause and effect theory of disease and smoking. Eye-grabbing headlines should strongly call out the point – Controversy! Contradiction! Other Factors! Unknowns!” The following year, one now well-quoted internal memo from Brown and Williamson, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco (BAT), outlined how: “Doubt is our product since it is the best way of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” The industry kept the controversy alive by sowing doubt. There was “no substantial evidence,” “no clinical evidence.” The debate was “unresolved” and “still open” as nothing had been “statistically proven” or “scientifically established.” There was “no
scientific proof.” It was clinical and cynical. “A demand for scientific proof is always a formula for inaction and delay and usually the first reaction of the guilty,” conceded the head of research at British and American Tobacco) BAT in 1976. Another way was to seek alternative facts. In 1970, Helmut Wakeham, head of research and development of Philip Morris, wrote: “Let’s face it. We are interested in evidence which we believe denies the allegations that cigarette smoking causes disease.” Nine years later, in 1979, Trump purchased an 11-story property which would become Trump Tower, just three minutes’ walk from the New York Plaza. By now, the industry was also denying the evidence of the health harms of secondhand smoke. Once again, the industry set up organisations to conduct research and divert attention away from the truth. To further confuse the debate, it set up front groups which acted on its behalf
“The most important type of story is that which casts doubt in the cause and effect theory of disease and smoking. Eyegrabbing headlines should strongly call out the point – Controversy! Contradiction! Other Factors! Unknowns!”
www.coldtype.net | May 2017 | ColdType
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