Doctors Ought to Care

Forty Years of Advocacy

1977-2017

1992

Betty Rollin story on DOC for The Today Show spiked, 1991-2

In the fall of 1991, NBC-TV News reporter Betty Rollin and her camera crew traveled to Houston to spend a week capturing some of DOC’s offbeat anti-smoking activities, including an interactive assembly for the students at the High School for the Health Professions and the creation of satirical counter-advertisements ridiculing tobacco companies and cigarette brands. A five-minute feature story was produced for “The Today Show,” but it never aired. Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds were still major advertisers of NBC through their food subsidiaries including Kraft and Nabisco. No explanation was ever given to the reporter or to DOC about why the story was never shown, but a miffed staffer sent the outtakes of the week’s taping to DOC.

Voicemail: Betty Rollin (Today/NBC News) to Alan Blum, MD of Doctors on Ought to Care

December 22, 1991

Outtakes: Betty Rollin (Today/NBC News) interview with Alan Blum, MD of Doctors on Ought to Care

Voicemail Transcript

Transcription of Betty Rollin’s call to Alan Blum, MD December 22, 1991.

Whether it washes with you or not, it’s true.

Letter from Michael G. Gartner, President NBC News, to Alan Blum, MD, Director Doctors Ought to Care, July 9, 1992.