Deadly Deception: The Tobacco Industry's Secondhand Smoke Cover Up

Many of the of the tobacco industry's underhanded strategies and tactics have been exposed, thanks to landmark legal cases and the hard work of public health advocates. But we are still uncovering the shocking lengths to which the industry has gone to protect itself from public health measures like smoking bans. Now we can thank the city of Pueblo, Colorado, for an opportunity to look a little bit deeper into how the industry managed the deadly deceptions around secondhand smoke.

A new study, now the ninth of its type and the most comprehensive one yet, has shown a major reduction in hospital admissions for heart attacks after a smoke-free law was put into effect.

On July 1, 2003, the relatively isolated city of Pueblo, Colorado enacted an ordinance that prohibited smoking in workplaces and indoor public areas, including bars and restaurants. For the study, researchers reviewed hospital admissions for heart attacks among area residents for one year prior to, and three years after the ban, and compared the data to two other nearby areas that didn't have bans (the part of Pueblo County outside city limits, and El Paso County, which includes Colorado Springs). Researchers found that during the three years after the ban, hospital admissions for heart attacks dropped 41 percent inside the city of Pueblo, but found no significant change in admissions for heart attacks in the other two control areas.

Eight studies done prior to this one in other locales used similar techniques and yielded similar results, but covered shorter periods of time -- usually about one year after the smoking ban went into effect. The results of this longer, more comprehensive study support the view that not only does secondhand smoke have a significant short-term impact on heart function, but that lives, and money, are probably being saved by new laws proliferating around the world in recent years that minimize public exposure to secondhand smoke.

Strategies to Deceive the Public

But Philip Morris did much worse than hide this crucial information from the public. Spurred by a 1993 EPARisk Assessment that declared secondhand smoke a known human carcinogen, and recognizing the danger the secondhand smoke issue held for the cigarette industry, Philip Morris masterminded a massive global effort to confuse and deceive the public about the health hazards of secondhand smoke and to delay laws restricting smoking in indoor public places.

A 1993 internal Philip Morris (PM) strategy paper titled "ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) World Conference" shows PM organizing a wide range of strategies to shape public views on secondhand smoke and fight smoking restrictions worldwide. PM pursued tactics to "shift concern over ETS to slippery slope argumentation and/or tolerance"; liken secondhand smoke to perceived risks from other items of public concern, such as cellular phones and chlorinated water; "shift concern over ETS in the workplace from the health issue to one of annoyance;" "shift the concern over ETS in restaurants from bans to accommodation where bans are imminent;" "develop an 'ETS Task Force,' with global PM representation to develop strategies to combat smoking restrictions;" "... package comprehensive improvements inventilation to forestall tobacco specific bans and ... shift the debate from ETS to IAQ [indoor air quality]." Another strategy was the "development of a global coalition against "junk science" to complement a similar coalition PM was already forming in the United States.

At the same time, PM implemented Project Brass, a secret action plan conceived by the Leo Burnett Company, to create a "controversy" over secondhand smoke where there really was none. Project Brass strove to "forestall further public smoking restrictions/bans," "create a decided change in public opinion," and "develop an atmosphere more conducive to smokers" in the general public.

Project Brass was just the tip of the iceberg. The tobacco industry implemented many projects over the decades to shape public perception about secondhand smoke and to delay laws regulating it. Many of these projects are listed under TobaccoWiki's "Projects and Operations" page: Project Mayfly, the INFOTAB ETS Project, PM and British American Tobacco's Latin American ETS Consultants Program, PM's ETS (Environmental tobacco smoke) Media Strategy, Philip Morris' Science Action Plan, and PM's ICD-9 Project to impede the creation of a medical billing code that would indicate illnesses that are attributable to secondhand tobacco smoke exposure.

These are just some of the projects we've learned of by combing through industry documents. Any one of these projects taken individually would be stunning in scope and ambition in its own right, but all of them taken together -- and the as-yet undiscovered efforts -- probably constitute the single most coordinated, widespread, expensive, under-the-radar PR campaign ever waged.

These extensive, expensive and hidden deceptions significantly undermined public understanding of the hazards of secondhand smoke and killed thousands and thousands of non-smokers and smokers alike.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8115

Tips For Reading Ingredient Labels

1. Remember that ingredients are listed in order of their proportion in the product. This means the first 3 ingredients matter far more than anything else. The top 3 ingredients are what you're primarily eating.

2. If the ingredients list contains long, chemical-sounding words that you can't pronounce, avoid that item. It likely does contain varioustoxicchemicals. Why would you want to eat them? Stick with ingredients you recognize.

3. Don't be fooled by fancy-sounding herbs or other ingredients that appear very far down the list. Some food manufacturer that includes "goji berries" towards the end of the list is probably just using it as amarketinggimmick on the label. The actual amount of goji berries in the product is likely miniscule.

4. Remember thatingredients lists don't have to list chemical contaminants. Foods can be contaminated withpesticides, solvents, acrylamides, PFOA, perchlorate (rocket fuel) and other toxic chemicals without needing to list them at all. The best way to minimize your ingestion of toxic chemicals is to buy organic, or go with fresh, minimally-processed foods.

5. Look for words like "sprouted" or "raw" to indicate higher-quality natural foods. Sproutedgrainsand seeds are far healthier than non-sprouted. Raw ingredients are generally healthier than processed or cooked. Whole grains are healthier than "enriched" grains.

6. Don't be fooled by the word "wheat" when it comes to flour. All flour derived from wheat can be called "wheat flour," even if it is processed, bleached and stripped of its nutrition. Only "whole grainwheat flour" is a healthful form of wheat flour. (Many consumers mistakenly believe that "wheat flour" products are whole grain products. In fact, this is not true. Food manufacturers fool consumers with this trick.)

7. Don't be fooled into thinking thatbrownproducts are healthier thanwhiteproducts. Brown sugar is a gimmick -- it's just white sugar with brown coloring and flavoring added. Browneggsare no different than white eggs (except for the fact that their shells appear brown). Brownbreadmay be no healthier than white bread, either, unless it's made withwhole grains. Don't be tricked by "brown" foods. These are just gimmicks used by food giants to fool consumers into paying more for manufacturedfood products.

8. Watch out for deceptively small serving sizes. Food manufacturers use this trick to reduce the number of calories, grams of sugar or grams offatbelievedto be in the food by consumers. Many serving sizes are arbitrary and have no basis in reality.

9. Want to know how to really shop for foods? Download our freeHonest Food Guide, the honest reference to foods that has now been downloaded by over 800,000 people. It's a replacement for the USDA's highly corrupt and manipulated Food Guide Pyramid, which is little more than a marketing document for the dairy industry and big food corporations. The Honest Food Guide is an independent, nutritionally-sound reference document that reveals exactly what to eat (and what to avoid) to maximize your health.

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/021929.html#ixzz1sR5ortCu

Hiding Dangerous Ingredients in the Food Industry

A third trick involves hiding dangerous ingredients behind innocent-sounding names that fool consumers into thinking they're safe. The highly carcinogenic ingredientsodium nitrite, for example, sounds perfectly innocent, but it is well documented to causebraintumors, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer and many other cancers (just search Google Scholar forsodiumnitrite to see a long list of supporting research, orclick hereto read NaturalNews articles on sodium nitrite).

Carminesounds like an innocent food coloring, but it's actually made from the smashed bodies of red cochineal beetles. Of course, nobody would eat strawberry yogurt if the ingredients listed, "Insect-based red food coloring" on the label, so instead, they just call it "carmine."

Similarly,yeast extractsounds like a perfect safe food ingredient, too, but it's actually a trick used to hidemonosodium glutamate(MSG, a chemical taste enhancer used to excite the flavors of overly-processedfoods) without having to list MSG on the label. Lots of ingredients contain hidden MSG, and I've written extensively about them on this site. Virtually allhydrolyzedorautolyzedingredients contain some amount of hidden MSG.


Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/021929.html#ixzz1sR4wKtuH

Tricks of The Food Trade

If the Nutrition Facts section onfood packaginglist all the substances that go into afoodproduct, how can they deceive consumers? Here are a few of the most common ways:

One of the most common tricks is todistribute sugars among manyingredientsso that sugars don't appear in the top three. For example, a manufacturer may use a combination of sucrose, high-fructosecorn syrup, corn syrup solids, brownsugar, dextrose and other sugar ingredients to make sure none of them are present in large enough quantities to attain a top position on theingredients list(remember, the ingredients are listed in order of their proportion in the food, with the most common ingredients listed first).

This fools consumers intothinkingthe food product isn't really made mostly of sugar while, in reality, the majority ingredients could all be different forms of sugar. It's a way to artificially shift sugar farther down the ingredients list and thereby misinform consumers about the sugar content of the whole product.

Another trick is topad the list with miniscule amounts of great-sounding ingredients. You see this in personal careproductsand shampoo, too, wherecompaniesclaim to offer "herbal" shampoos that have practically no detectable levels of realherbsin them. In foods, companies pad the ingredients lists with healthy-soundingberries, herbs or superfoods that are often only present in miniscule amounts. Having "spirulina" appear at the end of the ingredients list is practically meaningless. There's not enough spirulina in the food to have any real effect on yourhealth. This trick is called "label padding" and it's commonly used by junkfood manufacturerswho want to jump on the health food bandwagon without actually producinghealthyfoods.

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/021929.html#ixzz1sR4oyJLn

How food manufacturers trick consumers with deceptive ingredients lists

Naturalnews.com reports:

The myth: Ingredients lists on food products are designed to inform consumers about what's contained in the product. The reality: ingredients lists are used by food manufacturers todeceive consumersand trick them into thinking products are healthier (or better quality) than they really are. This article explores the most common deceptions used by food manufacturers to trick consumers with food ingredients lists. It also contains useful tips for helping consumers read such labels with the proper skepticism.

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/021929.html#ixzz1sR4jQgfM

"Cool" Camel

Photoshop: Before and After

American Medical Association Denounces Photoshop

"The organization said in a statement, "Such alterations can contribute to unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image — especially among impressionable children and adolescents." The AMA is now urging ad agencies to work with "agencies devoted to child and adolescent health to develop guidelines for ads," according to the Daily News. Why does this have to be so complicated? Are advertisers so perplexed and helpless when it comes to taking pictures of women that they really need help from child-health agencies? It's simple, advertisers: Don't make women thinner in postproduction, and don't cast anorexic models. And modeling agencies, start signing meatier girls so we get used to seeing them, and seeing them as beautiful. How many people in the general public aren't sick of the stick figures and the cultural implications — "put the burger down, you fat woman!" — they create?"


New York Magazine, American Medical Association 


http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2011/06/american_medial_association_re.html

The Evolution of Beauty

The Dove Real Beauty Campaign

Imagine a World Where Beauty is a Source of Confidence, Not Anxiety

The Dove Real Beauty Campaign is a worldwide marketing campaign launched in 2004 that includes advertisements, video, workshops, sleepover events and even the publication of a book and the production of a play. The principle behind the campaign is to celebrate the natural physical variation embodied by all women and inspire them to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves.