P.M. BRIEFING : Novello Joins Cisco Wine Protest
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WASHINGTON — Surgeon General Antonia Novello joined with other health advocates today in a campaign to stop the marketing of a high-alcohol wine in a way that critics said makes it look like a lower-alcohol wine cooler.
Novello called the fortified Cisco wine product, which is 20% alcohol, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” that is particularly dangerous to young people.
“It looks like a wine cooler. It smells like a wine cooler, but it isn’t,” Novello said. “It’s an incredibly potent, potentially lethal alcoholic beverage.”
Novello and other health activists spoke at a press conference at the Children’s National Medical Center, where 10 cases of teen alcohol poisoning caused by Cisco have been reported since last March.
In a letter to Cisco’s manufacturer, Canandaigua Wine Co. of Canandaigua, N.Y., Novello urged the company to repackage the drink to look like other fortified wines.
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