Doctor in No on 29 Ad Gets the Boot

The doctor who appeared in a campaign ad opposing a new cigarette tax has been removed from her post on a state health board by Gov. Jerry Brown, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Dr. La Donna Porter had served on a state advisory board whose purpose is to identify chemicals that can cause cancer or reproductive harm. You've probably seen signs, maybe even in your own apartment complex, that read something like, "This facility contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm." The advisory board helps to develop that list of chemicals and was created under Proposition 65 in 1986.

Porter recently appeared in an ad backed by major tobacco companies in which she attacked a cigarette tax measure, Prop 29, that will appear on the June ballot. Representatives of the committee that put out the ad have said she was not paid to do so, but her apparent alliance with the tobacco industry reportedly set off a firestorm of criticism from health advocates and her peers.

On Thursday Brown removed her from the board.

Watch the original ad and the Yes on 29 ad made in response to it in our previous post.