Post by judyb on Mar 25, 2018 21:19:46 GMT -5
Denying The Undeniable...
She started smoking at age 16, enraptured by such glamorous movie queens
such as Joan
Crawford, Bette Davis who smoked alot and always seemed to wear gowns,
not dresses
like she did. She dropped out of high school to help make ends meet and
was smoking a
pack a day when she was 18.
She married at age 21, Tony who never smoked but would go to the store for
her when
she ran out. She tried to quit when she became pregnant, but instead
smoked a pack
during her labor. In 1955, the cigarette ads contained assurances of their
new cigarettes
having “lower tars, lower nicotine” and health-conscious, she switched from
Chesterfield
to Liggertt’s new filter brand, L&M. She figured that this was a good idea,
trapping that
brown stuff in the new filter, and the ads said it “was milder and a miracle”.
(That while
the word “safer” was not used, it was clearly inferred over and over again.)
When the Surgeon General’s report came out in 1964, she knew about it, but
didn’t want
to think about it--though it was frightening.
She felt if smoking was really and truly that dangerous, the tobacco
companies wouldn’t
sell it, and certainly the government would stop them from being sold.... She
figured since
she used a milder, filtered brand she was probably OK. But mostly, she felt
nothing that
bad would be allowed to be sold.
Tony, who adored his wife, kept after her to quit but to no avail. But she
countered with
everything was bad for you, these days, eggs, sweeteners, meat--they were
always coming
up with something....
Rose Cipollone, in short, had a classic textbook case of what
academics called “cognitive
dissonance”. Two social psychologists* would later testify in her case in court
referring to a paper they’re written for a journal “how smokers dwelled in a
constant state of disequilibrium because their dependency conflicted with the
human impulse to survive and continued “in the face of undeniable and
overwhelming evidence that cancer is directly attributable” to smoking.
“Information can be denied,
distorted or forgotten in the service of ‘dissonance reduction’, while
arguments supporting the perverse conduct or belief are sought out and
prized.” (*Harold Kasarjian and Joel Cohen, in California Managment Review,)
So did we live in an tortuous state, denying the undeniable one day, flogging
ourselves the next...but to return to Rose...
Rose’s health began to falter in her forties--hysterectomy,
gallbladder---smoker’s cough--a symptom of chronic bronchitis. She took
her doctor’s advice and switched to True, Lorrilard’s new low-tar brand. But
she found herself smoking so many more when she smoked them..... “I didn’t
want to believe there was a risk.” and she said novenas, promising God she’d
quit, she was getting so scared.....
Her luck ran out in 1981, when a routine x-ray was taken, and the next three
years were fighting cancer. The four-day deposition by tobacco lawyers
drained what little strength she had, her charge that the tobacco industry had
knowingly foisted a dangerous addiction on her. She had smoked for 25
years before any warning labels had appeared.
Three days after her death, her lone, unaccompanied attorney faced the
Chairman of Philip Morris and a squadron of company lawyers, their sheer
numbers intimidating, in a large conference room to depose the Chairman.
More than three years would pass after her death before Rose had her
posthumous day in court, and five more years of strategic delays before a
judgment that was far less than the cost of litigation would be awarded--but
it was a ground-breaking case that would prepare the way for many other
decisions that held the tobacco companies culpable for their willful
withholding of the truth of their product.
Roadkill
Read more about Rose in “Ashes To Ashes,” by Richard Kluger, p.647--
She started smoking at age 16, enraptured by such glamorous movie queens
such as Joan
Crawford, Bette Davis who smoked alot and always seemed to wear gowns,
not dresses
like she did. She dropped out of high school to help make ends meet and
was smoking a
pack a day when she was 18.
She married at age 21, Tony who never smoked but would go to the store for
her when
she ran out. She tried to quit when she became pregnant, but instead
smoked a pack
during her labor. In 1955, the cigarette ads contained assurances of their
new cigarettes
having “lower tars, lower nicotine” and health-conscious, she switched from
Chesterfield
to Liggertt’s new filter brand, L&M. She figured that this was a good idea,
trapping that
brown stuff in the new filter, and the ads said it “was milder and a miracle”.
(That while
the word “safer” was not used, it was clearly inferred over and over again.)
When the Surgeon General’s report came out in 1964, she knew about it, but
didn’t want
to think about it--though it was frightening.
She felt if smoking was really and truly that dangerous, the tobacco
companies wouldn’t
sell it, and certainly the government would stop them from being sold.... She
figured since
she used a milder, filtered brand she was probably OK. But mostly, she felt
nothing that
bad would be allowed to be sold.
Tony, who adored his wife, kept after her to quit but to no avail. But she
countered with
everything was bad for you, these days, eggs, sweeteners, meat--they were
always coming
up with something....
Rose Cipollone, in short, had a classic textbook case of what
academics called “cognitive
dissonance”. Two social psychologists* would later testify in her case in court
referring to a paper they’re written for a journal “how smokers dwelled in a
constant state of disequilibrium because their dependency conflicted with the
human impulse to survive and continued “in the face of undeniable and
overwhelming evidence that cancer is directly attributable” to smoking.
“Information can be denied,
distorted or forgotten in the service of ‘dissonance reduction’, while
arguments supporting the perverse conduct or belief are sought out and
prized.” (*Harold Kasarjian and Joel Cohen, in California Managment Review,)
So did we live in an tortuous state, denying the undeniable one day, flogging
ourselves the next...but to return to Rose...
Rose’s health began to falter in her forties--hysterectomy,
gallbladder---smoker’s cough--a symptom of chronic bronchitis. She took
her doctor’s advice and switched to True, Lorrilard’s new low-tar brand. But
she found herself smoking so many more when she smoked them..... “I didn’t
want to believe there was a risk.” and she said novenas, promising God she’d
quit, she was getting so scared.....
Her luck ran out in 1981, when a routine x-ray was taken, and the next three
years were fighting cancer. The four-day deposition by tobacco lawyers
drained what little strength she had, her charge that the tobacco industry had
knowingly foisted a dangerous addiction on her. She had smoked for 25
years before any warning labels had appeared.
Three days after her death, her lone, unaccompanied attorney faced the
Chairman of Philip Morris and a squadron of company lawyers, their sheer
numbers intimidating, in a large conference room to depose the Chairman.
More than three years would pass after her death before Rose had her
posthumous day in court, and five more years of strategic delays before a
judgment that was far less than the cost of litigation would be awarded--but
it was a ground-breaking case that would prepare the way for many other
decisions that held the tobacco companies culpable for their willful
withholding of the truth of their product.
Roadkill
Read more about Rose in “Ashes To Ashes,” by Richard Kluger, p.647--