Lifting a smokescreen

Is the women and tobacco campaign a ploy to promote smoking cessation products?

Women and smoking was the subject of a swirl of media attention last week. Striking tabloid images showed the impact of smoking on women's appearance. Alongside “shocking pictures,” the Daily Express explained that “experts from taskforce SCAPE (Smoking Cessation Action in Primary carE) artificially aged a pair of identical twins to show how they might look at the age of 40 if one continues to smoke and the other remains a non-smoker.” There was no explanation of what SCAPE is or what prompted its publicity stunt. Television news provided greater insight. ITN reported the results of a survey recently commissioned by SCAPE: “Women don't know about the risks of smoking … Nearly 99 per cent did not know of the link between smoking and cervical cancer.”

SCAPE describes itself as “a group of health care professionals, working in primary care, dedicated to driving the effective delivery …