Back to the future of digital price display: Analyzing patents and other archives to understand contemporary market innovations.

The article explores reasons for the lack of success of digital electronic shelf labels (ESLs) in US retail settings. It suggests that these reasons can be traced by referring to the triple meaning of 'digital': 'Digital' now means electronic, but the word also long encompassed numerals - a digit is a number - and body parts - digitus is the Latin word for the finger, that is, the index we use to point at things or manipulate them. The current fate of ESLs is linked to a long history that combined these three dimensions. The study unfolds along a twofold narrative. First, it reviews the recent introduction of ESLs in the United States based on the reading of papers and advertisements published in Progressive Grocer, a leading trade press magazine. Then, it goes 'back to the future' by exploring the roots of ESLs over a century. This historical study is based on the analysis of the evolution of US price tag patents (through a network study of patents citations and their evolution); the network analysis is complemented with the history of the US price tag market (through the knowledge gained from Progressive Grocer). The results show that digital price fixing depends on past and present systems and infrastructures, cost constraints and payback schemes, legal frameworks, and social projects.

Origins in the USA in the 1980s of the warning that smokeless tobacco is not a safe alternative to cigarettes: a historical, documents-based assessment with implications for comparative warnings on less harmful tobacco/nicotine products.

BACKGROUND: Before the 1980s in the USA, smokeless tobacco carried no health warnings, was not judged to cause disease, and was a declining practice. In 1986, the federal government passed legislation requiring rotating warnings on "mouth cancer," "gum disease and tooth loss," and "This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes." This paper explores the history of the establishment of these warnings with emphasis on the 'not a safe alternative' warning and the bases for claiming that smokeless was 'not safe' (absolute harm) versus 'not safer than cigarettes' (relative harm). METHODS: Results of searches of Truth Tobacco Industry Document archives and transcripts of legislative hearings were analyzed. Critical assessments were made of the evidence-base. RESULTS: New evidence of oral cancer causation emerged along with a much-publicized case of a teenager dying of oral cancer. Public health concerns also arose over a widespread, successful marketing campaign implying smokeless was a safe alternative to cigarettes. Industry wanted pre-emptive federal warnings, to prevent a diversity of pending state warnings. To avoid an addiction warning, the industry accepted a compromise 'not a safe alternative' warning, which had not been initially proposed and which the cigarette industry may have sought in order to constrain the smokeless tobacco industry. The evidence presented supported smokeless only as 'not safe' and not 'as harmful as cigarette smoking.' CONCLUSIONS: The comparative warning was a compromise to prevent an addiction warning and consistent with the preferences of cigarette companies. Prior surveys indicated that the public generally did not view smokeless tobacco as harmless, but they did generally report smokeless as less harmful than cigarettes despite expert interpretations to the contrary. As would not have been appreciated by public health supporters at the outset, subsequent research has shown that the 'not a safe alternative' message is misinterpreted by consumers to indicate that smokeless is 'not safer' than cigarettes-which was not established and has been disconfirmed by subsequent assessments of that question. Though many countries have banned smokeless tobacco (but not cigarettes), where smokeless is legally available accurate information on the nature of harms and differential harms needs to be developed.

A Review of the History of Attitudes Toward Drinking in Pregnancy.

BACKGROUND: It is now well accepted in pediatrics and obstetrics that prenatal alcohol is a teratogenic agent and the primary causative factor underlying fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), although for the majority of the 20th century that knowledge was either unknown or ignored. At least 2 factors contributed to the delay in recognizing alcohol's role in teratogenicity: the rejection of earlier evidence pertaining to alcohol and pregnancy following the repeal of Prohibition in the United States, Canada, and several European countries; and misinterpretation of earlier research findings in a eugenic rather than toxicological context. The pervasive belief held well into the 1970s that there was no risk to either mother or fetus from prenatal alcohol posed a major challenge to changing physician and public attitudes on alcohol and pregnancy. This review provides insight on key events that occurred in changing physician and public understanding of the risks posed by prenatal alcohol use in pregnancy. METHODS: Historical review of events primarily in the U.S. federal government, found in referenced documents. RESULTS: The transition in physician and public understanding of the risks posed by prenatal alcohol use was aided by the existence of National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) which was created in 1971. This government agency was able to support research on alcohol and pregnancy immediately following the 1973 published clinical reports calling attention to a proposed fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). These early research studies provided the foundation for the first government health advisory on alcohol and pregnancy, issued by NIAAA in 1977. Subsequently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used this new knowledge on FAS in their effort to add alcoholic beverages to the range of products with ingredient and consumer information labeling. The ensuing hearings and actions resulted in a new health advisory under the auspices of the Surgeon General, encouraging avoidance of alcohol consumption in pregnancy. In subsequent years, Congressional attention to the FAS issue resulted in the Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Law. CONCLUSIONS: The pace at which understanding of the risks of prenatal alcohol moved forward from a total misunderstanding to acceptance was aided by both the efforts of the NIAAA in its support of research, and the FDA in its efforts to improve consumer information. Today, many women in the United States as well as other countries continue to ignore advisories on avoiding alcohol consumption in pregnancy, emphasizing the need for persistence in education on these health risks.

Poison politics: a contentious history of consumer protection against dangerous household chemicals in the United States.

The history of consumer protection against household poisons presents a key case study of the uniquely American struggle to balance public health and safety with the interests of business. By the late 19th century, package designs, warning labels, and state statutes had formed an uneven patchwork of protective mechanisms against accidental poisonings. As household chemicals proliferated in the early 20th century, physicians concerned with childhood poisonings pressured the federal government to enact legislation mandating warning labels on packaging for these substances. Manufacturers of household chemicals agreed to labeling requirements for caustic poisons but resisted broader regulation. Accidental poisonings of children continued to increase until the enactment of broad labeling and packaging legislation in the 1960s and 1970s. This history suggests that voluntary agreements between government agencies and manufacturers are inadequate to protect consumers against household poisonings and that, in the United States, protective household chemical regulation proceeds in a reactive rather than a precautionary manner.

Current status of tobacco policy and control.

Behaviors pertaining to tobacco use have changed significantly over the past century. Compared with 1964, smoking prevalence rates have halved from 40% to 20%, and as a result there has been a slow but steady decline in the rates of tobacco-induced diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Growing awareness of the health risks of smoking was aided by the US Surgeon Reports that were issued on a nearly annual basis starting from 1964. Concerns about the hazards of breathing in second-hand smoke further contributed to the declining social acceptance of smoking, which evolved into regulatory actions restricting smoking on buses, planes, retail outlets, restaurants, and bars. Today, 23 states and 493 localities have comprehensive laws restricting indoor smoking. This paper examines public policies that have made a significant impact on smoking and lung cancer rates and discusses potential future research directions to further reduce the diseases caused by smoking.

Packaging radium, selling science: boxes, bottles and other mundane things in the world of science.

This article discusses the intersection of science and culture in the marketplace and explores the ways in which radium quack and medicinal products were packaged and labelled in the early twentieth century US. Although there is an interesting growing body of literature by art historians on package design, historians of science and medicine have paid little to no attention to the ways scientific and medical objects that were turned into commodities were packaged and commercialized. Thinking about packages not as mere containers but as multifunctional tools adds to historical accounts of science as a sociocultural enterprise and reminds us that science has always been part of consumer culture. This paper suggests that far from being receptacles that preserve their content and facilitate their transportation, bottles and boxes that contained radium products functioned as commercial and epistemic devices. It was the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act that enforced such functions. Packages worked as commercial devices in the sense that they were used to boost sales. In addition, 'epistemic' points to the fact that the package is an artefact that ascribes meaning to and shapes its content while at the same time working as a device for distinguishing between patent and orthodox medicines.

The silence: the asbestos industry and early occupational cancer research--a case study.

To gain insight into corporate activities regarding the identification of occupational carcinogens earlier in this century, the actions of one industry, the asbestos industry, were reviewed. This industry, in concert with many of its insurers, systematically developed and then suppressed information on the carcinogenicity of asbestos. The development of warnings for those exposed to the asbestos was delayed. As a result, millions of workers were exposed to the carcinogen and hundreds of thousands died. These events are placed into the context of similar activities in other industries during this time.

Health warning labels for alcoholic beverages in Canada.

This paper reviews the background and rationale for health warning labels for alcoholic beverages. They have been recently approved for the United States. Mexico and Colombia already have such labels. However, Canadian health officials seem reluctant to require them unless the alcohol industry agrees. Arguments against labels (i.e. that they detract from other efforts, are misguided or ineffective) are not convincing. Evidence from research on health warnings on cigarettes and prescription and non-prescription drugs shows that labels can be effective if well designed. Special problems in having bilingual labels may exist but could be overcome. Canada should have health warning labels on alcoholic beverages as soon as possible.