AMA Alliance Warns Parents About Smoking in 'The Incredible Hulk,' Other Summer Bl...(ce that the MPAA increased the rating of...),Health

"Over the last few years, tobacco marketing geared to children has rightly been phased out of the mainstream," said Dr. Gail Arthur, an AMA Alliance member, parent and pediatrician from Harrisonburg, Virginia. "We need Universal Studios and the other Hollywood studios to be part of a solution that discourages smoking and reduces tobacco's influence. That doesn't mean inconsistently burying warnings in the fine print. It means upgrading any films with unnecessary smoking to an R rating."

In October 2006, the AMA Alliance joined the American Legacy Foundation to launch Screen Out!, a campaign fighting for a mandatory R rating on all films that depict unnecessary or irresponsible smoking. The AMA Alliance also recommends eliminating product placements of specific tobacco brands, certifying that no studios benefit from placements, and running effective anti-smoking ads before any film with smoking.

"Instances of tobacco imagery in youth-rated films are particularly alarming," said American Legacy Foundation President and CEO Cheryl Healton, Dr. PH. "We hope that parents will consider the impacts that smoking in movies can have on their own children and feel empowered to build the momentum behind this issue on a national level."

The AMA Alliance is encouraging its 27,000 members to alert their local media and communities about the smoking in "The Incredible Hulk," as well as to continue pressuring the MPAA, Universal Studios and its other studio members to remove smoking once-and-for-all from youth-rated films.

The studios (Paramount, Disney Pictures, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Brothers) are owned by the media corporations that make up the MPAA: Disney, Time Warner, Sony, Viacom, General Electric and the News Corporation.

About the AMA Alliance

The AMA Alliance, the volunteer arm of the American Medical Association
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