William McCarthy

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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

William McCarthy was a research psychologist at the University of California Los Angeles circa 1986. (L. White, Merchants of Death, 1988).

Biography

McCarthy says many studies have shown that where cigarette advertising bans are instituted, as in Norway, there is little effect on adult smokers already addicted to nicotine. "But you do see a decrease in the number of kids who start by about 50%. In other words, only one-half the kids you would expect to start will start," he told Advertising Age on 8/8/86. (L. White, Merchants of Death, 1988).

Dr. McCarthy is a young critic of Henningfield and maybe a Council for Tobacco Research special project grant recipient. Dr. McCarthy is known for saying that smokers have an optimistic bias or what is otherwise known as a self-protective cognitive bias. His criticism of Dr. Henningfield is based on Dr. Henningfield's oversight to consider the intermediate levels of tobacco smoke topography. (Tobacco smoke topography includes such factors as puff, puff duration, puff volume, inhalation frequency, retention time in the lungs and available tobacco smoked).

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