Word: tobacco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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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...
...announcement--that "there is an overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers"--appeared on the company's newly designed Web site (www.philipmorris.com) and is the second in a series of attempts by tobacco 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...
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...
...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...
...Philip Morris, this is just part of a wider publicity campaign, in which the company's tobacco products are played down (they are only one of many headings on the company's Web site, and an inconspicuous one at that), and new attention is given to its food and drink products Miller and Kraft. The Marlboro logo no longer appears on the site, while in contrast the most complete link is to Philip Morris's community and charitable actions, including headings such as hunger, domestic violence, culture and AIDS. That the company is engaging in an intensive image-building campaign...