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2. Certify no payoffs.

The producers should post a certificate in the closing credits declaring that no one on the production received anything of value (cash money, free cigarettes or other gifts, free publicity, interest-free loans or anything else) from anyone in exchange for using or displaying tobacco. (SFM is working with attorneys on how certification can be made binding and enforceable.)

3. Require strong anti-smoking ads.

Studios and theaters should require a genuinely strong anti-smoking ad (not one produced by a tobacco company) to run before any film with any tobacco presence, in any distribution channel, regardless of its MPAA rating.

4. Stop identifying tobacco brands.

There should be no tobacco brand identification nor the presence of tobacco brand imagery (such as billboards) in the background of any movie scene.

During this week leading up to the 80th Annual Academy Awards on Feb. 24, The AAP and other public health groups from New York and Los Angeles to Liverpool and Sydney seek to raise awareness of the need to detoxify our children's movies, so that parents can choose entertainment that is not pushing tobacco.

"It is critically important that there be genuine, proven-effective, anti-tobacco messages to help protect youth from the influence of media promotion of smoking," said Gil Fuld, MD, FAAP, Chair of the AAP Council on Communications and Media. "The AAP recently asked the five largest DVD retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Blockbuster and NetFlix) to call for inclusion of effective anti-tobacco spots, hazard labels on DVD packages, and display posters to help alert parents to the hazard of tobacco imagery in movie DVDs."

The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical spe
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