Reframing a health hazard as social discomfort is a way to negate its harms

Evidence

Tobacco companies also negate adverse health effects by treating tobacco smoke as a source of “social discomfort” rather than a carcinogen. Linguistically cleansing tobacco smoke of its chemical properties made the problem psychosocial rather than one of physical health: … This report describes studies supporting the hypothesis that it is the smoker, rather than the chemical status of cigarette smoke itself which plays the key role in determining the non-smoker’s psycho-physiological response to the passive smoking situation. … Among the recommended studies was examination of the extent to which social discomfort is determined by the “degree to which the nonsmoker has perceived control over the passive smoking situation” (Hang et al., 2013). In the industry’s view, the problem with tobacco smoke is best dealt with by social accommodation: “Voluntary accommodation is a much more ‘efficient’ solution to the problem of indoor air pollution, for no one is forced to give up his or her rights and the rights of others are also respected (Bennett & Di Lorenzo, 1997). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1679

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates the euphemistic labeling mechanism that sanitizes moral/social harms.
• XREF: Direct parallel to how Cooper’s social-conservatism framing re-labels policy effects.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1679