Intended for healthcare professionals

Letters

Bus shelters in photograph, showing drug adverts, were replaced long ago

BMJ 1998; 316 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.316.7132.705 (Published 28 February 1998) Cite this as: BMJ 1998;316:705
  1. Jonathan Michael, Chief executive
  1. University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, Birmingham B29 6JF

    EDITOR—I was disappointed to see a two year old photograph of the bus shelters on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital site in the BMJ's Photofinish.1 A national voluntary agreement between tobacco companies and the advertising industry states that there should be no advertisements for tobacco products on any bus shelters anywhere in the United Kingdom. This agreement was reached shortly after last year's general election. The bus shelters are on a public road running past the hospital. Responsibility for advertising on the shelters rests with the local passenger transport authority, not the hospital.

    Not only have the bus shelters not carried advertising for tobacco companies for many months but the photographs showed hospital signs that were replaced before April 1996. Therefore there is no possibility that Douglas Salmon could have taken the photographs in April 1997.

    Footnotes

    • *The photograph was sent to Minerva on 18 April 1997, and it then joined the long queue of photographs awaiting publication. Minerva had no way of knowing when it had been taken. She wrote the caption to the photograph and apologises for her error.—EDITOR

    References

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