A review of the July and August 1992 issues of ten publications (Redbook, Glamour, New Woman, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, Self, Family Circle, Mademoiselle, McCall's and Harper's Bazaar) reveals not only that the health "advice" is a distortion of scientific reality, but also that the disinformation about health is sponsored (through advertising) by the manufacturers of the leading cause of premature, preventable death.

The science of disease causation and prevention, epidemiology, is neither new nor mysterious. Standard medical textbooks are clear as to the number and causes of premature, preventable deaths that occur in this country. About two million Americans die each year; of those about one million deaths are preventable (that is, premature). Half of those preventable deaths (500,000) are caused by cigarette smoking, and another 100,000 or so are the result of alcohol misuse and abuse. A substantial portion of the balance of these preventable deaths is caused by violence, illicit drug use and a failure to use life-saving technology like seat belts, early disease detection tests and smoke detectors. The role that diet plays in shortening life — other than engendering the complications caused by obesity — is speculative and controversial at this point. Epidemiologists do stress that "environmental" factors are key in disease causation. However, the "environmental" factors to which they are refer are not the trace levels of chemicals or other background elements commonly sensationalized in the press, but rather lifestyle factors, particularly cigarette smoking.

"The Dangers Among Us"

Yet the summer issues of popular magazines focused not on smoking and other lifestyle factors but on the alleged ill effects of trace level chemicals and other hypothetical causes: Redbook and Glamour tell us of the hazards of methyl mercury and "potentially carcinogenic" PCBs in fish; Self writes of the alleged dangers of common food additives like sodium nitrite, BHA and BHT "because they cause illness in animals."

Glamour notes the health risks of eating imported fresh fruit which might be contaminated with surface bacteria. Other publications raise red flags about the dangers of salt; "carcinogens" in barbecued meat; electromagnetic fields emanating from refrigerators, stoves and alarm clocks (to reduce your risk of cancer, Family Circle cautions you to "keep dial face clocks 5 feet and digitals 3 feet from your bed"); radiation emissions from computers; breast implants (a hot topic for discussion in many of this summer's magazines); toilet seats and hot tubs; lead wrappers on wine bottles and in dinnerware; contaminants in recycled food containers; high intensity halogen lights (Harper's Bazaar recommends you use a plastic cover to block out potentially harmful UV rays); thrill rides at amusement parks ("your life may be in your own hands" Glamour warns) and even the weather (which, according to Redbook, can make you sick). Self notes that even smiles can be hazardous to health if they repress your inner feelings, and New Woman admonishes that "toxic relationships" can bring on illness. (Beware the dangers of a "lethal lover.")

So what type of advice do the magazines offer women on how to stay healthy? Here is a sampling: eat lots of broccoli to ward off cancer (Redbook); take vitamins E and C and beta carotene to protect against heart disease and cancer (Glamour); eat garlic to fight colds and flu (McCall's); get a pet to lower blood pressure and cholesterol (Self); and eat active culture yogurt to live longer (Harper's Bazaar).

Why the Disinformation?

One might argue that the reason these magazines ignore the real health risks is that their business is to entertain, not inform, and that to refer regularly to the pervasive negative health effects of smoking would put them in the undesirable role of Nanny. But the role of cigarette advertising revenues in the "filtering" of stories with bad news about smoking cannot be underestimated.

The magazines carried a total of 147 cigarette advertisements (the total at any other time of year would be larger but August is a sparse month for magazine ads) — all of which characterized their product as being glamorous, sexy and feminine. Indeed, one ad for Misty cigarettes offers "the Misty Look Book which promises "fashions that fit your face, figure and coloring."

Cigarettes showed up not only in ads, but in editorial copy (Redbook editors specifically welcomed new advertisers, Liggett & Meyers/Lark and R. J. Reynolds/Camels) — July Vanity Fair carried seven photos of people smoking or carrying cigarettes, including photos of teen idols Luke Perry and Jason Priestley from Beverly Hills 90210. In one photo, the famous twosome have cigarettes in their mouths, in another, Priestley, surrounded by teenage girls, acts as a model for Marlboro Lights, the pack placed carefully and precariously in his pants pocket.

Clearly cigarette advertising revenue places a chill on the free discussion of the dangers of smoking, a topic only rarely touched upon by these publications. (Redbook in August did note that 90 percent of kids worry about the health effects smoking has on their parents.) Cigarette ad revenues prompt editors to push purely hypothetical risks to center stage, masking the extraordinary contribution of smoking to premature death.

Indeed, the overwhelming presence of cigarette ads in these magazines makes otherwise well-meaning editorial copy look hypocritical: New Woman quotes Dr. Bernadine Healy, Director of the National Institutes of Health, on the need for more women's health research, "We can only be a strong nation if we are a healthy nation of men and women." The same magazine expresses outrage about breast implants, "We need to be a lot more suspicious, especially of a society that fosters then plays on our insecurities." This same issue contains 23 ads for the leading cause of preventable death — cigarettes. Cosmopolitan in a "What We Want Now" feature, surrounded by cigarette ads, ironically demands "a major effort to solve the drug problem" and "increased funding for research on women's health." Meanwhile, no reference is made to the fact that lung cancer has replaced breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among women.

The presence of cigarette advertising in publications which purport to offer guidance on avoiding premature death and disease is comparable to a medical journal carrying ads for the AIDS virus, except that cigarettes kill ten times as many Americans annually as does AIDS. If historians ever wonder about the underlying causes of inverted health priorities that characterize our nation's public health policies today — policies which draw attention to the alleged dangers of everything from apples to bacon to electric blankets, yet ignore the significance of nearly $4 billion in advertisements for the leading cause of death — they need look no further than the magazines at today's newsstands.

(From Priorities Vol. 4, No. 4, 1992)

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