It's Not Just Guns Smoking Throughout James Bond Movies

Lung cancer might beat a bullet in taking out 007, say researchers
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 18, 2017 11:47 AM CST
It's Not Just Guns Smoking Throughout James Bond Movies
Daniel Craig appears in a scene from the James Bond film, "Spectre."   (Jonathan Olley/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions via AP)

James Bond may have given up smoking, but his health—and high fitness level needed to evade nemeses—is at risk thanks to secondhand smoke. Concerned about 007's overall health, a team led by medical doctor Nick Wilson at the University of Otago reviewed all 24 Bond films (apparently the patient was unavailable) to find that the super spy has been exposed to considerable amounts of secondhand cigarette smoke, per a tongue-in-cheek Tobacco Control study. While Wilson gives Bond credit for giving up smoking in 2002—he lit up within the first 20 minutes of a film on average before then—he says Bond's sexual partners who smoke still present a risk, and not just because 15% have tried to harm or kill him, per Popular Science.

By keeping his relationships short-lived, Bond is limiting some of the impact from secondhand smoke, Wilson quips, per the Sydney Morning Herald. But there are real-life implications as a 2016 report notes youths who view smoking on screen are twice as likely to smoke as others. Bond himself smoked in 83% of films in the 1960s and 40% in the 1980s, though not in any in the 1990s. Only one Bond film—2006's Casino Royale—had no smoking imagery. "The persisting smoking content remains problematic," the team says in a release, noting 2015's Spectre—in which only minor characters smoked—resulted in 261 million "tobacco impressions" among Americans aged 10 to 29. Says Wilson, it's time for Bond to smarten up. (Bond's drinking is also a problem.)

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