"Screen Out" press release

AMA Alliance URGES PARENTS TO Choose SMOKE-FREE MOVIES THIS HOLIDAY SEASON 

Chicago, Dec. 5 – This holiday season, as a profusion of movies is released on DVD, the American Medical Association (AMA) Alliance, the 26,000-member volunteer arm of the AMA, encourages parents to avoid movies with smoking and tobacco images, which could have a dangerous effect on children’s health.

The following popular PG and PG-13 movies, most of which are available on DVD, were released earlier this year and contain an overwhelming amount of smoking:

• The Ant Bully (PG: Time Warner, animated)
• Material Girls (PG: Sony)
• Talladega Nights (PG-13: Sony)
• Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (PG-13: Disney)
• Stay Alive (PG-13: Disney)
• Superman Returns (PG-13: Time Warner)
• You, Me and Dupree (PG-13: General Electric, Universal)

"Our research shows that movies deliver billions of glamorized pro-smoking messages to adolescents in this country," says James Sargent, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the Dartmouth Medical School, who, through funding from the American Legacy Foundation, released multiple studies showing children are impacted from smoking in movies. "Existing research also shows very clearly that seeing these images promotes smoking initiation. As a pediatrician and prevention expert, I believe that parents can play a big role in reducing teen tobacco use simply by limiting their kids' exposure to movies with tobacco imagery. Parents can help by pressuring the movie industry to incorporate smoking into the movie ratings system. That way everyone will know which movies promote smoking just by reading the movie rating label." The most recent research just published in the December 2006 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine emphasizes the risk that such exposure poses on children’s health.

Over the past seven years, Hollywood has released more youth-rated movies featuring tobacco than R-rated films—there have been at least 460 G, PG and PG-13 movies with tobacco, and only 440 R-rated movies with smoking.

“According to medical studies, on-screen smoking has been implicated as the cause of 390,000 new teen smokers every year,” said Nita Maddox, AMA Alliance president. “It is estimated that 120,000 of this group of new teen smokers will eventually die from tobacco use.”

Through a $500,000 donation from the American Legacy Foundation, the largest national independent public health foundation dedicated to keep youth from smoking and helping smokers quit, the AMA Alliance will lead a parent-to-parent grassroots initiative to make future movies rated G, PG and PG-13 smoke-free.

“This campaign will have an impact on the health of children not only here, in North America, but also in other countries around the world, where U.S. movies dominate the media culture and where the tobacco industry is hunting its next generation,” said Maddox. “When we get smoking out of youth-rated movies in Hollywood, it will be felt all the way to Cape Town, Shanghai, Djakarta — and for decades to come.”

For a complete list of movies depicting smoking and tobacco images, visit the AMA Alliance Web site at http://www.amaalliance.org/site/epage/43126_625.htm. 

The AMA Alliance, the volunteer arm of the American Medical Association, is committed to public health promotion in their organizational mission. A not-for-profit organization of more than 26,000 grassroots members working in their communities, the AMA Alliance strives to ensure child safety, prevent abuse and violence, promote healthy lifestyles and increase awareness of available health care resources. Visit the AMA Alliance Web site at www.amaalliance.org.

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