ASH and BMA call for impotence warnings

Action on Smoking & Health has joined forces with the British Medical Association to call for a sexual impotence warning on cigarette packets.

Action on Smoking & Health has joined forces with the British Medical Association to call for a sexual impotence warning on cigarette packets.

Both organisations are asking the government and the European Commission to add the warning “smoking causes male sexual impotence” to tobacco product packaging.

Clive Bates, director of ASH, says: “The EC, which is reviewing a directive on the labelling of cigarette packets, could change the warnings itself. “This suggested warning will cut across the absurd associations between smoking and glamour, sex and sophistication.”

But a spokeswoman for the Department of Health says: “There won’t be room on the pack to list all the damage that smoking does to the human body.”

She will not be drawn on whether or not the Government would support the campaign for an additional warning relating to impotence, but says it is looking at labelling ingredients.

ASH is also campaigning for warnings to take up 30 per cent of the pack face.

ASH and the BMA have published a report called Smoking and Erectile Dysfunction in Men, warning that smoking is responsible for impotence in 120,000 UK men aged between 30 and 49.