Statement by Dr. Joel Dunnington, MD
University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Center
on "Houston" Cigarettes
(sold in Senegal, West Africa)

Statement distributed at a press conference in Dakar
on February 13, 2004

It has come to my attention that a French tobacco company has been using Houston as a brand name for cigarettes marketed in Senegal. The billboard ad for Houston cigarettes shows a young couple, full of life having a good time in a convertible. A city skyline is in the background. Great advertising, but it is not reality. All cigarette ads by their very nature are in fact lies. This one starts with a big lie; since the city in the background is not Houston Texas, it is Seattle Washington. A photo of downtown Seattle is attached below.

Cigarettes will kill over 5 million people worldwide this year. That is more than AIDS, more than Malaria, and more than all the wars around the world this year. To replace those 5,000,000 people who were the tobacco industry's best customers, the tobacco industry will do almost anything and advertise almost anything, to recruit new smokers to keep the enormous profits flowing.

Cigarettes do not make you sexy, healthy, strong, romantic or attractive. They make you stink, have bad breath, burn holes in your clothes and lose your friends. They also kill you in multiple ways from lung cancer to premature babies. The young romantic, sexy couple in the ad is also a lie, since the number one cause of early male impotence is cigarette smoking. Cigarette ads are designed to attract new smokers (mainly children), retain current smokers and entice former smokers to return to their addiction.

Houston is home to the largest medical center in the world, The Texas Medical Center. A large number of the patients seen at two of the worlds largest heart centers, The Methodist Hospital and The Texas Heart Institute, are there simply because they smoke. The University of Texas M.D. Anderson is the largest cancer center in the world. Over 25% of the patients we see are here simply because they smoked cigarettes. A third of our patients die from their smoking caused cancers. Why didn't the French Tobacco Company advertise the truth, and use a picture of the Texas Medical Center as the background for the Houston cigarette billboard?

The French Tobacco Company wants to use the image of Houston and America to promote smoking, but in reality the smoking rate in America is dropping. Six states have passed complete smoking bans in all workplaces, restaurants and bars. Smoking also costs the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars to treat tobacco caused diseases.

So, if you want to live a long life and be like a Houstonian stop the advertising of cigarettes , stop smoking , and throw the tobacco pushers out of town.

Joel Dunnington, MD
University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, Texas