Israel's respected daily newspaper in the Hebrew language, which markets itself as "the newspaper for thinking people," has published a six page cover story in its magazine supplement dismissing the fact that passive smoking is dangerous to health and praising some of the so-called benefits of active smoking. The article in Ha'aretz, which was largely based on a misrepresentation and misinterpretation of an epidemiological meta-analysis by Copas and Shi in the BMJ (2000;320:417-8), has been roundly denounced by Israeli public health experts and by Israel's health minister, Shlomo Benizri.
As a result of the article, the health minister called on all Israeli print media, "especially Ha'aretz," to stop accepting and publishing cigarette advertisements. Currently, the only Israeli publications to adopt such a policy on tobacco are Bamahaneh (the magazine of the Israel Defence Forces) and Yom LeYom (the weekly paper of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party).
Minister Benizri, a rabbi from the Shas party who—unlike many of his predecessors—adopted a policy aimed at reducing smoking, said that research had found a connection between the amount of tobacco advertising in each paper and the manner and amount that the papers write about cigarettes.
The Ha'aretz article on passive smoking that provoked the health minister's wrath was "Smoke without fire, passive smoking: the myth and the reality" and was written by Amira Segev, a former health reporter on the newspaper. It assembled the comments of eight well known Israeli smokers, including a controversial heart surgeon, Professor Dani Goor, who attacked activists for smoking reduction as "hooliganism in attempts of vested interests to take over the lives of individuals." Professor Goor, who has heart disease and has undergone an emergency bypass operation, said that he feared overweight people will "soon be persecuted like smokers."
The introduction to the article claimed that "comprehensive research in the prestigious medical periodical, the British Medical Journal, proves that there is no scientific basis for claims [that passive smoking is] an enemy of the people."
The statistical analysis by Copas and Shi of 37 previously published epidemiological studies on the connection between passive smoking and lung cancer, however, did not state that there was no scientific basis for this. Their analysis instead suggested there may be "some exaggeration" in statistics about the risk of lung cancer from passive smoking because some studies that did not show a link were not published so the results of published studies need to be "interpreted with caution."
Ms Segev maintained in her article that smokers have been "demonised," "treated like lepers," and "forced to avert their eyes and try to evade the arrogant gaze of non-smokers." She also claimed that activists for a smoke free environment are dubbed "health Nazis" in the United States. Her article claimed that numerous studies minimising the risk of passive smoking had been "intentionally hidden from public view."
Amos Hausner, a lawyer and one of Israel's leading antismoking activists, said that he was appalled by the Ha'aretz article. The son of the late Israeli attorney general Gideon Hausner, who prosecuted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in the 1960s, he said: "I was deeply offended by the articles calling antismoking activists "health Nazis." The Nazis murdered people; we who oppose smoking fight to save peoples lives."
Mr Hausner added that denying the harmful consequences of smoking brings to mind the sad phenomenon of Holocaust denial. Minister Benizri said the article described smoking "in a very positive light, while spreading doubt and dispute about the harm caused by smoking."
He added: "I am not saying that certain advertisements influenced the content of the article and the decision to publish it, but a newspaper that decides to publish such an article has the obligation to prove that there is no connection between its advertising income and the way it deals with the subject of smoking."
The Israel Medical Association is threatening to sue Ha'aretz for libel, because the article claimed that the association's application to declare nicotine a dangerous drug had failed, whereas the application was still pending. A public national committee headed by a senior judge is now debating the issue and hearing evidence.
Ten readers' letters attacking Ms Segev's article for its misrepresentations were published in the Ha'aretz magazine in the following two weeks expressing surprise that the newspaper did not seek out experts to balance the content of the article. Some of the readers also noted that some pieces of research minimising the risk of passive smoking were financed by the tobacco companies.
Professor Eliezer Robinson, chairman of the Israel Cancer Association and president of the International Union Against Cancer, suggested that "since authors of medical journal articles must state in writing that they have no vested interests, it would be a good idea for general newspapers here to do the same regarding smoking."
Ehud Asheri, the editor of the Ha'aretz magazine admitted that his staff had not read the BMJ article but had based its cover story on a Reuters report about it. Hanoch Marmari, the editor of the Ha'aretz newspaper, stated that decisions on articles in the magazine were made completely separately from the advertising departments.
The publisher, Amos Schocken, did not provide figures on the extent of the newspaper's income from tobacco advertising, but said that it was "not very significant." The newspaper will publish any advertisements that "do not violate the law," Mr Schocken added. However, in 1994 Schocken testified before a parliamentary committee discussing bills to restrict tobacco advertising and said that such restrictions would cause his newspaper "serious financial harm."