There have been reports today that five tobacco companies are trying to sue the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over new laws that will come in to place in September, forcing them to display graphic health warnings on their products. These are similar to warnings used here in UK, and in many other countries around the world.
Putting aside for a moment their farcical suggestion that this removes their constitutional right to free speech, it has brought a more alarming fact to my attention; namely that this is the first legal change to cigarette packaging in 25 years. How has the USA government allowed them to get away with so much for so long? Of course a large part of the answer is the financial control that these companies have; their lobbying has funded campaigns to keep shop displays of smoking products, and allegedly funded grass-roots organisations denouncing governmental smoking laws as ‘nannying’.
Another recent worrying trend came to my attention at a recent conference of the International Epidemiology Association. A number of presentations related to world smoking trends. Although in this country male smoking seems to be declining, and we sit quite low down a ‘country by country’ hierarchy, this is not the case for female smokers here in UK, where we rank very high, particularly for girls at a young age (under 25). Why might this be, when until very recently it seemed that smoking trends were falling year on year, across all ages and genders? One argument might be that the media portrayal of supermodels ‘smoking to stay thin’ has a large impact on women to achieve the body beautiful. This may well be involved, but there is something more sinister going on too.
It seems that tobacco companies have marketing strategies specifically aiming their products at women. And worryingly, despite the many restrictions on advertising, it seems to be working. Social networking is now used to promote brands, and adverts, so although they don’t appear in the press, they still ‘do the rounds’ on the internet. Cigarette package design and even the design of cigarettes themselves are also tailored at women – who wouldn’t want to smoke ‘slims’ in an elegant package that looks beautiful poking out of your handbag? Some adverts, as you’ll see below, go even further by attempting blatant emotional manipulation. I don’t want to inadvertently be working for a tobacco company’s marketing department (!), but a quick Internet search should show you what I mean.
What the tobacco companies fail to mention is that tobacco smoke is disproportionately harmful to women compared to men. It can increase risks for cervical cancer, osteoporosis, and conditions relating to reproduction such as an increased risk of spontaneous abortions and still births. And this is before we get to smoking during pregnancy. Once you’re a smoker it’s very hard to give up, so becoming pregnant, although a good motivator for stopping, might not be enough to put down the packet. This can lead to all sorts of problems for a child before it’s even born.
And why pick women? Well, they don’t smoke as much as men, simple as that. It’s a deeply cynical move by the tobacco companies, as is the attempt to sue the FDA. For all the advances in our understanding of tobacco and what it can do, while tobacco companies can still aggressively target certain groups of people, and succeed, current restrictions are clearly not going far enough. If the tobacco companies succeed in suing the FDA, it will be a huge step backwards for the health of the USA, and would set a precedent for tobacco companies in other countries to complain as well.
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