Word: philip
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After decades of disputes with the government and with the United States Surgeon-General, U.S. tobacco company Philip Morris, the largest in the country, made a cynical publicity bid earlier this month when it at last recognized that smoking causes cancer and other major diseases and that tobacco is addictive...
...companies to give salience to health-related issues. Last year, the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company similarly redesigned its Web site to include a section on smoking and health hazards, and Tommy Payne, director of R.J. Reynolds, announced two weeks ago that his company planned to follow suit. Previously, Philip Morris had only gone so far as to claim that smoking may be a "causal factor" in certain diseases, and many commentators now say that the company has taken a radical step simply by changing a few words...
...Philip Morris telling its clients that its products kill looks like commercial suicide. So what are cigarette makers up to? When its Web site says, "Smokers and potential smokers should rely on these messages in making all smoking-related decisions," does a tobacco company actually mean smokers should quit? Certainly not; it would go out of business. It is only because Philip Morris knows that such pious statements have little impact that it publishes them. After all, the scientific evidence regarding the impact of smoking has been around for quite a while, at least since 1964, when the first Surgeon...
...that day--packs they probably can't really afford. Ask them why they still smoke, and they'll answer with a raspy voice, "I'm too old to quit." The opposite story, that of young people who thoughtlessly take up smoking, is just as tragic and common. So when Philip Morris advertises that "cigarette smoking is addictive, as that term is most commonly used today. It can be very difficult to quit smoking, but this should not deter smokers who want to quit from trying to do so," it really doesn't tell anyone anything new, nor does it really...
...recognizing the health hazards of smoking, Philip Morris and other tobacco companies may just be attempting to avert legal action such as that undertaken by many state attorneys general in recent years. Lawsuits since 1995 have sought to make cigarette makers reimburse the costs of smoking-related health care, arguing that companies had intentionally misled smokers into thinking that cigarettes were safe. Openly stating the risks now could free companies of any charges of misrepresentation in the future...