Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 11, 1992 TAG: 9203110181
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
RJR Nabisco - maker of Camel cigarettes and originator of the "Old Joe" ads for Camels - has been a sponsor of an AMA campaign against cholesterol for four years. The company participated through its Fleischmann's line of margarines and cholesterol-free egg products.
"As long as Fleischmann's was able to sign on to the overall objectives of the campaign - knowing that the campaign had a very strong anti-smoking component - then we were able to accept Fleischmann's," said Wendy Borow, AMA vice president for consumer affairs.
"It's the same exact company that is promoting cigarettes to kids," said Dr. Alan Blum, chairman and founder of Doctors Ought to Care, a health advocacy group in Houston.
"When they go to doctors, they're a food company. When they go to young kids at sports events, they're a cigarette company," said Blum, an AMA member.
On Monday, Dr. James S. Todd, the AMA's executive vice president, joined Surgeon General Antonia Novello to blast RJR Nabisco for running ads that they said appealed to children.
A December study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that "Old Joe" is as familiar to 6-year-olds as Mickey Mouse.
"It is absolutely an outrage, and immoral, that they have targeted our children, prior to the age of consent, bombarding them with cartoon images saying, `Be like Old Joe and smoke Camels.' This must stop now," Todd said.
Borow said that Fleischmann's was one of several corporate sponsors of the AMA's Cholesterol and Fat Education Campaign. The campaign is in its final year, she said. Fleischmann's did not return several calls seeking comment.
Borow said she didn't know how much money has been received from Fleischmann's. She said about $1 million has been spent in each year of the campaign to inform the public about risk factors for heart disease, including smoking.
Todd strongly defended the AMA's acceptance of money from RJR. "If you can't kill the tobacco - the thing you're really after - what is immoral about taking money away from an organization that would ordinarily show up in the profits of RJR?" he said Tuesday.
"If we weren't taking that money away from them, it would be going into RJR's advertising coffers. God knows where it would be going."
Scott Ballin, vice president of public affairs for the American Heart Association, said the association does not accept tobacco money. "Clearly it has the effect of buying silence, whether people admit it or not," Ballin said.
The heart association is developing a policy about accepting money from tobacco company subsidiaries, such as Fleischmann's, Ballin said. "If the tobacco industry continues to buy up non-tobacco related subsidiaries, it becomes difficult to sort out," he said.
Blum said Novello and the AMA were wrong to attack only the Old Joe ads. "By going after cartoon characters, they are in effect implying that other cigarette ads are OK. I think that's a dangerous thing. It doesn't have to be a cartoon character" to attract children, Blum said.
by CNB