CHICAGO, Jun 15 (Reuters) -- The Chicago Bulls may have won a sixth-straight National Basketball Association championship, but the American Medical Association (AMA) is slam-dunking the cigar-puffing seen during the team's televised victory display.
The on-air show of stogies so enraged delegates to the AMA meeting here that Dr. Edward Donoghue, Cook County chief medical examiner and a delegate to the meeting, said he will take "the AMA's concern directly to the players involved." Donoghue said he would contact Bulls' stars Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen as well as any other players shown lighting up on national television. "I hope we can get them to admit they made a mistake."
In other smoking-related news from the AMA, the group's Council on Scientific Affairs is asking delegates to endorse a plan that asks the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to push for the creation of non-addictive cigarettes. The Council wants the FDA to require that cigarette makers taper the nicotine content of cigarettes so that in 10 years, the nicotine content will be "so low that the nicotine is pharmacologically inactive," council chairman Dr. Ronald M. Davis of Lansing, Michigan, said.
"If we lower the nicotine to non-addictive levels, we believe that 70% to 80% of smokers will quit," Davis explained in answer to critics who said no cigarette is safe.
Dr. Richard T. Bell of West Reading, Pennsylvania, one of the plan's opponents, warned that, "There is no such thing as a safe cigarette. There are still carcinogens present in the smoke even if nicotine is removed."
The AMA is also considering a plan to strengthen its efforts to stem smoking by children. As proposed by the New Jersey delegation, the AMA would request the entertainment industry to "stop the portraying of tobacco products as glamorous and sophisticated." Some AMA delegates also suggested that the movie industry consider the use of tobacco products as well as violence, sex, and language when rating movies.
The delegates will begin voting on the smoking proposals and other business on Tuesday, June 16th.
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