In my opinion it is an inexcusable disservice to our community that the NCJ prints full-page and double-full-page advertisements for cigarettes (July 1 and July 8). I for one will stop reading the print version where these ads appear, and so will not see any of the other advertisers’ promotions either. NCJ advertisers, take note.
Bruce LeBel, Arcata
This article appears in The Vaccine Issue.
A real inexcusable disservice is Health Canada, a public oversight body established to act in consumers’ best interests, bending to corporate lobbyist manipulation. Health Canada allowed novelty-flavored vaping products to be fully marketed — even on corner stores’ candy counters — without independent, conclusive scientific proof that the product (as claimed by its tobacco-industry creator) would not seriously harm consumers but rather help nicotine addicts wean themselves off of the more carcinogenic cigarette means of nicotine deliverance. A few years before that, Health Canada had sat on its own research results that indicated seatbelts would save lives and reduce injury; it said it wanted even more proof of safety through seatbelts before ordering big bus manufacturers to install them in every bus (presumably because of additional cost to bus makers). How’s that for a hazardous double standard in regards to proof of product safety?!