Mary Bonnette (Letters, September) criticized our Nightingales anti-tobacco industry activism, saying she "cringed" over nurses being tobacco company shareholders. Frankly, I too cringed a bit at that phrasing in the otherwise excellent article ("Nightingales Confront Tobacco Company, Redux," June) about our second annual trip to the Altria-Philip Morris shareholders' meeting, because it inadvertently suggested that we were serious investors, which is untrue. Each participating nurse buys only one share of stock for the sole purpose of being able to speak out at these meetings about the suffering of those for whom we care. It's likely that single-share ownership costs the company more in processing expenses than it gains by our "investment."

Ruth E. Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN

San Francisco, CA