E-cigarette Company Tactics in Sports Advertising.

John Bunyan coined the phrase “The Captain of all these the men of death” and applied it to consumption (ie, tuberculosis); Sir William Osler subsequently applied the phrase (“Captain of the men of death”) to pneumonia in the pre-antibiotic era; but both diseases gave way to tobacco-related lung disease, which now has the unanswerable claim on that title. Eventually, the pioneering work of Sir Richard Doll and many others was recognised, demonstrating the toll of premature death caused by the tobacco industry, but only after many decades of harm. Despite an industry campaign of disinformation supported by physicians lauding the virtues of smoking, legislation to restrict smoking in public and ban advertising was passed and resulted in many demonstrable health benefits. The sight of a tobacco advertisement in a public place or a tobacco-sponsored sporting event today would be shocking, and it seemed attitudes towards tobacco and public health were improved and heading in the right direction.