The exacerbation of the antismoking campaign, with the use of dreadful tobacco warning labels, finds its explanation in the perception of its downward trend: smokers and non-smokers, children and adults became, since long time now, accustomed to the ominous labels to the point that they give no more importance than to the <No cholesterol> in bottled water.
In fact, since the year 2005, there has been no change in the smoking rate. The data are furnished by the Sept. 2010 CDC report in which it is stated: "The decline in smoking has stalled in the past five years". As a matter of fact, the 20.9% smokers in 2005, were practically unchanged (20.6%) in 2009.
On Nov. 2012, Charles Bankhead, staff writer of MedPage Today, writes that, according to the CDC:
"The percentage of people who smoke remained essentially unchanged from 2010 to 2011".
The article concludes: <A summary of the report included the public health implications: "To meet the Healthy People 2020 target for smoking among adults, effective interventions need to be continued or augmented, such as a combination of smoke-free laws, tobacco price increases, access to tobacco cessation treatments and services, and anti-tobacco media campaigns featuring graphic personal stories on the adverse health impact of smoking.">.
A few days after this write-up, here is another staff writer of MedPage Today, Nancy Walsh, coming up with:
"Smokers Light Up Even in Hospital"
In that piece it is stated that 18.4% of patients who smoked before admission reported cigarette use during their inpatient stay, despite the fact that almost two-thirds were given nicotine patches – an evidence of the ineffectiveness of pharmaceutical nicotine (ed.) -. Walsh also wrote: "The hospital has a program in place that provides cessation counseling and nicotine replacement therapy to smokers".
The lay press ignores these facts: they wouldn’t sell more papers and, besides, Big Pharma wouldn’t like it. The only purpose of such articles is to boost the market of the tobacco cessation treatments. As a matter of fact both (with no doubt piloted) point out to the necessity of persisting with, and increasing, the use of smoking-cessation drugs and, evidently, the antismoking campaign.
A marginal note at the end of the second article, recites:
<One co-author reported having received a research grant from Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, of being an unpaid consultant for Pfizer and Alere Wellbeing, and of receiving royalties from UpToDate on smoking cessation>.
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