Doctors fume over Ash's smoking act

The doctors also demanded that the smoking scene in the film be removed immediately. “We are in the process of writing letters to the Information and Broadcasting and Health Ministry to the effect,” Dr Pankaj Nalavade, secretary, Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors at KEM Hospital, told reporters here.

“Knowing fully well the ill-effects of smoking, how could Aishwarya allow herself to act in the film ‘Guzaarish’ smoking away a cigarette and also allowed that particular scene to be used by the advertisers through big hoardings all over the city giving wrong signals to young minds,” the resident doctors said. “We are against the act in the film. The person bestowed with Padmashree and once crowned as Miss World should be a role model for youngster.

She was the one who inspired people through eye donation campaign but with advertisement for smoking, she will be only promoting ideas for ill-health,” the doctors said.
The protesting doctors also pointed out to the fact that about one million people die of tobacco-related diseases every year. They have also written a letter to Aishwarya asking her whether the producer and the public relations agency had taken her consent to use the particular picture for the advertisement. “Tobacco companies are now targeting Indian women. Smoking makes women infertile apart from causing many cancers, including breast cancer, and smoking by mothers severely affects the child,” doctors cautioned the actor.