I assumed that such proposals came immediately after publication of scientific study around the dangers of environmental tobacco smoke. Not so. The records summarised in Denial Delay reveal that the National Society for Non-Smokers was lobbying the UK House Workplace for such bans through 1954-7. In 1988 I enthusiastically approached the writers of nearby tv dramas to encourage them to consist of storylines on smoking and quitting. This, I found in Chapter five, had been performed no less than after before–in the BBC soap opera Compact in 1964. Similarly, I had believed that the nicotine aerosol device was a really current concept, emerging out of technological innovations along with the predicted convergence in the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries. Incorrect once again. Lennox Johnston, a basic prac-denounced; James I issued his renowned Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604. There was a strong antismoking movement in Victorian instances, and also the reforms of the Children’s Act of 1908 incorporated prohibition with the sale of tobacco to anyone aged beneath 16. In 1962 a report by the Royal College of Physicians, Smoking and Overall health, presented the medical dangers to the public clearly adequate. But, as modern media reports show, evidence thought of by scientists to bear only 1 interpretation could possibly be reconstructed in pretty distinct strategies. The Everyday Express railed against interfering paternalism and sniffed a conspiracy to enhance taxes. Doctors really feel frustrated when sufferers defy what appears unassailably rational advice to stop smoking. They react by demonising the behaviour of tobacco organizations plus the addictive power of nicotine. But the explanation is a lot more complex. Within this book Hilton shows how smoking is deeply embedded within a cultural framework that continues to associate the habit with good attributes. A cigar is in no way just a cigar.Christopher N Martyn BMJDenial Delay: The Political History of Smoking and Wellness 1951-1964, Scientists, Government and Sector as observed in the papers in the Public Records OfficeDavid PollockAction on Smoking and Overall health, , pp 166 ISBN 1 872428 44 4 Title Loaded From File Rating:t is simple to neglect that an issue will not come into existence merely at the earliest point of our own institutional memory. Reading Pollock’s account of the reactions of government officials to early scientific findings on the hyperlink amongst smoking and illness was for that reason a disturbing knowledge. It was disconcerting to discoverBMJ VOLUME 321 five AUGUST 2000 bmj.comItitioner from Wallasey, proposed such a device to the Medical Research Council in 1942. Fascinating as the quite a few anecdotes are, they may be not the key purpose to read this book. This history of early efforts to reduce smoking shows how scientific caution, bureaucratic inertia, ideological squeamishness about government involvement in private matters, commercial pressures, plus the personal circumstances of a variety of players combined to stop the adoption of easy, low expense measures that could have saved a huge number of families from losing a kid, a parent, or possibly a spouse in middle age. It provides important insights to all those functioning in tobacco handle and is an invaluable case study for any political scientist, overall health activist, or doctor who seeks to influence government health policy. As we await the British government’s response to lengthy overdue expressions of offici.