FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 15, 2007
Contact:
Patricia McLaughlin, 202-454-5560 pmclaughlin@americanlegacy.org Kimberley Collins, 904-280-2773 kcollins@golinharris.com
R.J. REYNOLDS UNDER FIRE FROM 45 OF THE NATION'S LEADING WOMEN’S AND PUBLIC HEALTH LEADERS ® American Legacy Foundation Spearheads Diverse Group of Public Health, Women’s, Public Interest Organizations Calling for Camel No. 9 Cigarettes to be Taken off Store Shelves WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than 45 groups dedicated to protecting and improving women’s health are calling for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to remove its Camel No. 9 cigarettes from stores across the nation. With its stylish packaging and advertising featuring black, bright pink and teal colors, a female-friendly design motif and a name evocative of women’s fashion icons, Camel No. 9 is directly targeted to teenage girls and young women. The impact of Camel No. 9 advertising and packaging on young women is a serious public health threat. In the wake of the Camel No. 9 launch, more than 40 members of Congress called on women’s magazines to refuse advertising for this product, because the members see such ads as direct attempts to attract girls and young women to smoking. On August 1, 2007, members of Congress sent a follow-up letter to leading women’s publications, urging them to consider to “voluntarily adopt an institutional policy of rejecting cigarette advertising aimed at young people” and asking for a response by August 15. “R.J. Reynolds is the same company that brought the American people Joe Camel advertising, which had a direct link to an increase in youth smoking and which at one time was recognizable to 90 percent of six year olds,” American Legacy Foundation President and CEO Cheryl Healton, Dr. PH, said. “Joe Camel went away, and it’s time for Camel No. 9 to do the same.” “Tobacco-related diseases kill more than 178,000 women in the U.S. every year – one every three minutes. There is nothing stylish or glamorous about these tragic, premature deaths," said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E), Executive Director of the American Public Health Association. "With more than 80 percent of smokers starting smoking before their eighteenth birthdays, it is imperative that we speak out strongly against a new cigarette brand with such blatant appeal to teenage girls.” While R.J. Reynolds’ marketing executives say that their Camel No. 9 ad campaign is solely aimed at adult women who already smoke, the more than 40 public health and women’s groups who have signed on to the letter understand that the facts say otherwise. In internal company documents made public, an R.J. Reynolds executive once explained that, “It is relatively easy for a brand to retain 18-year-old smokers once it has attracted them. Conversely, it is very difficult to attract a smoker that has already been won over by a different brand.” Smoking affects a woman’s reproductive health and increases the risk of infertility, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, preterm labor, stillbirth and SIDS. Smoking increases a woman’s risk of heart disease and lung disease, in addition to cancer of the bladder, cervix, esophagus, larynx, lung, kidney, oral cavity, pancreas and pharynx. Lung cancer, overwhelmingly caused by smoking, kills more women than any other cancer, including breast cancer. The groups listed here have joined the American Legacy Foundation in calling for R.J. Reynolds to remove Camel No. 9 from the marketplace. Together, they hope that this action will prevent hundreds of thousands of young women and teen-age girls from starting to smoke, from becoming addicted to nicotine and from dying prematurely because of smoking-caused disease. Alliance for Aging Research American Academy of Pediatrics American Cancer Society – Cancer Action Network American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists American Diabetes Association -more-
American Heart Association American Lung Association American Medical Association American Medical Women’s Association American Public Health Association
Groups Call For Camel No. 9 to Be Taken of Store Shelves/add one
American Social Health Association American Society for Reproductive Medicine Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights Association of Reproductive Health Professionals Association of Women’s Health, Obstetrics, and Neonatal Nurses Black Women’s Health Imperative Business and Professional Women/USA Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Citizen’s Commission to Protect the Truth Coalition of Labor Union Women Living Beyond Breast Cancer Lung Cancer Alliance National Asian Women’s Health Organization National Association for Female Executives National Association of County and City Health Officials National Association of Local Boards of Health National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health National Consumers League
National Council of Women's Organizations National Education Association – Health Information Network National Hispanic Medical Association National Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention National Lung Cancer Partnership National Medical Association National Organization for Women (NOW) Foundation National Partnership for Women and Families National Research Center for Women and Families National Women’s Health Network National Women's Law Center OWL Planned Parenthood Federation of America Public Health Advocacy Institute Service Employees International Union Society for Women’s Health Research Society of Gynecologic Oncologists Tobacco Control Legal Consortium YWCA
The following statements have been provided by some of the public health and women’s organizations that support the removal of R.J. Reynolds’ Camel No. 9 from the marketplace: According to Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, President and CEO at the Black Women's Health Imperative, "17% of African-American women smoke and about 45,000 African Americans die annually from such tobacco-related diseases as heart disease, stroke and cancers, including lung cancer. While the Imperative is working to help African-American women become savvy healthy consumers, the tobacco industry is trying to deceive women into buying their deadly products. RJ Reynolds is advertising Camel No. 9s as "light and luscious," while knowing full well that light cigarettes are just as harmful as regular cigarettes. Our nation's magazines should be working to educate their readers about the dangers of smoking -- including smoking light cigarettes --rather than facilitating the tobacco industry's misinformation campaign." "As physicians and medical students, the American Medical Women’s Association's members are well acquainted with the fact that smoking is the largest cause of preventable death among American women," said Susan L. Ivey, M.D., Immediate Past President of the AMWA. "The last thing American women need is a cigarette designed especially for them. R.J. Reynolds should pull this brand off the market, and magazines should refuse to run ads for this brand" "Teenage girls already smoke as much or more than boys their age, and one out of three of these smokers will eventually die prematurely from a tobacco-related disease. Women's magazines, which have millions of young female readers, should not be a party to the promotion of this deadly habit. Magazine editors should also be cognizant of the enormous influence that advertising has on our nation's young people," added Dr. Lorraine Cole, CEO of the YWCA. "In fact, one study cited by the U.S. Surgeon General attributes 34% of adolescent experimentation with cigarettes to tobacco marketing." -moreThe American Legacy Foundation ® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation’s programs include truth®, a national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX™, an
Groups Call For Camel No. 9 to Be Taken of Store Shelves/add two
innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use; and a nationally-renowned program of outreach to priority populations. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit www.americanlegacy.org.
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