This Article  • Full text  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1998;152:513-514.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

An article¹ in the December 1997 issue of the ARCHIVES seems to misrepresent tobacco industry expenditures reported to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The article says that cigarette promotional item distribution "has increased each year in this decade, from $0.31 billion and 7.7% of the cigarette advertising budget in 1990 to $1.25 billion and 25.8% of the advertising budget in 1994."¹(p1189) This statement confuses different categories of promotional spending, leading to a 10-fold exaggeration in its growth.

The FTC tracks tobacco industry spending on promotional items in 2 categories: Specialty Item Distribution, which covers branded materials that are sold or given away, and Coupons and Retail Value Added, which includes branded materials as well as cigarettes "bought" with company coupons. An FTC official whom I interviewed said that the agency does not break that category down further into items and cigarettes bought with coupons.

Evidently, Sargent et al used . . . [Full Text of this Article]