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Fowl effects from smoking
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  1. JUDITH MACKAY
  1. Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control
  2. Hong Kong, China.
  3. jmackay{at}hk.super.net

    https://doi.org/10.1136/tc.7.3.227a

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      In the immediate wake of the Hong Kong chicken ’flu, which tragically claimed four deaths and led to the mass destruction of all chickens in Hong Kong, the campaigning group People Acting for a Smokeless Society (PASS) produced a poster depicting a very dead chicken flat on its back with a cigarette in its mouth (figure) The poster was entitled “beware: smokers’ flu”. PASS pointed out that smoking kills about 5000 residents a year in Hong Kong.

      Figure

      An anti-smoking poster in Hong Kong mimicked the city’s chicken ’flu campaign.

      Mimicking the Hong Kong government’s bird ’flu campaign, PASS encouraged smokers to watch out for the symptoms of “smokers ’flu”: coughing, wheezing, hacking, foul odour emanating from the mouth and fingers, yellow-stained teeth, damaged taste buds, decline in sex drive, impotence, and infertility. One newspaper commented: “Who knows? Maybe PASS is onto something. After all, if the grisly sight of a deceased chicken smoking a butt doesn’t scare you straight, what will?”