Safer Alternative

Reader James Fulford points out that the American Cancer Society has corrected the misinformation about smokeless tobacco that I criticized in my column last week. When I looked at the relevant Web page on December 15, it said: "Some people believe that using smokeless tobacco is safer than smoking. This is not true."

The new version says: "Some people believe that using smokeless tobacco is a safe alternative to smoking. This is not true."

I'm not sure whether I can take credit for the switch from blatantly false to merely misleading. (Fulford notes that the ACS misstatement was also cited in a paper presented at a tobacco conference last February.) But it's nice to see a tiny step toward truth at an organization that many people look to for authoritative health information.