How's that for a dramatic headline?

It's a little bit of an exaggeration but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released today a National Cancer Institute study that says there's a link between "exposure to depictions of smoking in movies and youth smoking initiation."

In science speak the CDC writes: "Adolescents in the top quartile of exposures to onscreen tobacco incidents have been found to be approximately twice as likely to begin smoking as those in the bottom quartile."

But the CDC report also noted that In 2010, "the number of onscreen tobacco incidents in youth-rated (G, PG, or PG-13) movies continued a downward trend, decreasing 71.6% from 2,093 incidents in 2005 to 595 in 2010."

Anyone out there start smoking as a young person because it looked cool in movies?

(AP archive photo of Joe Camel)