MUMBAI: A cancer surgeon from Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel has written an open letter to Hollywood actor Pierce Brosnan criticizing his recent endorsement of a pan masala brand that contains flavoured areca nut— a proven cancer causing substance.Head and neck cancer surgeon and anti-tobacco crusader Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi has questioned the actor’s decision to endorse a carcinogen that is popular among youngsters because of its “cheapness, packaging, ease of access and shrewd marketing etc”. “Its consumption leads to submucous fibrosis, a condition where a child has burning sensation and difficulty to open mouth. Many of them turn cancerous after 5 to 7 years of hellish life,” he said.Pan masala is a concoction of flavoured areca nut, lime, cardamom seeds and various types of flavouring substances. Chaturvedi said that in an ongoing matter in the Supreme Court , the union health ministry has submitted a voluminous report on the health hazards of areca nut. He further appraised the actor that areca nut contains a psycho active substance that leads to addiction. “Your promotional video must have caused many youths to take up this addiction that they will find difficult to quit subsequently,” he said. He lamented that Brosnan, who has lost his first wife and daughter to cancer, chose to endorse tobacco that kills one million Indians every year.“As per the Indian law, every advertisement of pan masala must have a statutory warning that it is a harmful substance. Those warnings were deceptively made inconspicuous and unreadable in your advertisement. Did you realize how people are being cheated?” Chaturvedi wrote in his letter, urging Brosnan to use his charisma for tobacco control instead. The surgeon said that there is research to show that consumption of areca nut adversely affects the reproductive health of the pregnant women and even their unborn child.Statistics say that nearly 200 million chew tobacco making India the world’s mouth cancer capital. “Why did you choose to promote oral cancer?” he questioned the star, most known for his Britsh spy James Bond’s role. Brosnan’s advertisement of the product had taken the social media by storm even provoking reactions from the international media. The manufacturers of pan masala maintain that pan masala is a mouth freshener with no tobacco in it.