Red-faced doctors have promised to print a less anatomically controversial poster for their anti-smoking campaign after producing one that features an 'erect' cigarette protruding from a sensitive part of a cartoon skeleton.
The campaign - launched yesterday in Central by a group of doctors led by medical sector legislator Kwok Ka-ki - targets international tobacco giant Philip Morris, which this week announced it would slash the price of a cigarette pack by $4. The poster carries the Chinese-language message: 'Undermining people's health; ignoring your social responsibility.'
But it also features a not-so-Grim Reaper holding a scythe in one hand while the other holds a protruding cigarette extending from his pelvis.
Dr Kwok yesterday said the poster had not been mass-produced and would be redesigned before it was distributed at future rallies and meetings against the tobacco industry.
'I didn't see it. It was a rush job by my staff - they just did a cut-and-paste on the computer. I need to have a talk with them,' he said.
The chairman of the Hong Kong Medical Association's health education committee, Alvin Chan Yee-shing, a Medical Council member and fellow anti-smoking campaigner, agreed the poster was unsatisfactory.