Conveying misinformation: Top-ranked Japanese books on tobacco

We searched Amazon.com Japan using the term "Tobacco", identifying the top 12 books by "relevance" and "bestselling." We eliminated duplicates and books not concerned with tobacco use and classified the remaining books as pro-smoking, anti-smoking, or neutral. We reviewed the pro-smoking books, published 2004-2009, and analyzed examples of misinformation by theme.Pro-smoking popular books conveyed five types of misinformation: doubt about science; suggestions that smoking increased health, longevity, virility, etc.; trivializing tobacco's effects; attacking public health advocates/authorities; and linking tobacco use with authenticity, history, or civil rights. At least one book was authored by a former Japan Tobacco employee; another used a popular Japan Tobacco advertising phrase.Creating doubt and confusion about tobacco serves tobacco industry interests and re-creates a strategy developed by US tobacco interests more than 40 years ago. Japanese readers may be misled by texts such as those reviewed. Tobacco control and public health advocates in Japan and globally should expose and counter such misinformation. "Naming and shaming" may be effective.Since it is established that smoking tobacco causes disease [1,2], and the landmark Japanese study showing that secondhand smoke (SHS) causes disease in nonsmokers was published almost 30 years ago [3], it is surprising that tobacco use in Japan remains so widespread that the country has been called a smokers' paradise [4]. Although nationally, smoking rates have continued dropping [5], 39.4% of Japanese men and 11.0% of Japanese women still smoke [5], and 24% of health professionals are smokers, compared with 4% overall among U.S. health professionals [6]. Tobacco control efforts in Japan lag many other countries, possibly because the Japanese government is the majority owner of Japan Tobacco, Inc. (JT) [7]. Given an absence until recently of effective central government action, it is unclear why smoking has dropped, b