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Paul M. Fischer, MD; John W. Richards, MD
Medical College of Georgia Augusta

Earl J. Berman, MD
Memorial Medical Center Savannah, Ga

Dean M. Krugman, PhD
School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Georgia Athens

JAMA. 1989;261(18):2633-2634.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.—

Dr Alwitt fails to understand or has ignored the central issue in our research. The essential "context" for the warning must be the tobacco advertisement itself. Only 8% of the viewing time was devoted to the warning, while 92% was devoted to the advertisement. Comparisons with advertisements for products that carry no warnings are irrelevant.

As we acknowledged in the article, the sample size is small. However, our study remains one of the largest ever reported in the literature using eye tracking techniques. Furthermore, it is the only published study to examine the effectiveness of the Surgeon General's warning for adolescents.

Dr Alwitt is incorrect in her statement that the subjects should have been able to read the warning in three visual fixations. The reference¹ that she cites, in fact, states that only eight letters are "seen" in the average fixation. The warnings on cigarette advertisements average . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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