Television Ban on ‘Suicidal Pseudosport’ of Auto, Motorcycle Racing Sought by Editor

NEW YORK —  The editor of the New York State Journal of Medicine Monday called on the media to ban automobile and motorcycle racing from television because the sport is one of the most deadly.

Editor Alan Blum also charged the media would have stopped covering the sport long ago had it not been for intense pressure exerted by the tobacco industry, which generally sponsors racing events.

“Automobile racing seldom has been criticized in the mass media because the sponsors of this suicidal pseudosport are the mass media’s richest and most aggressive advertisers,” he said.

Blum said boxing has been criticized because it has resulted in more than 400 participant deaths since 1918, “but motor racing kills that many drivers in each decade.”

He said the media focuses its coverage more on the crashes than on the racing itself.

Coverage of races, he said, “is teaching teen-agers to drive recklessly” and should be banned from television.

The article in which Blum made his comments was in a special issue of the New York State Journal of Medicine focusing on the dangers of smoking.