The advertisement featuring nude TV hostesses provoked fierce debate online and in media over the morality of using nudity to promote public interest causes. [sina]

Chen, who was suspended from presenting duties said it was a "public interest advertisement", the Beijing News said.

Changsha TV, in a statement, said Chen has been suspended from her job and would be handled according to its rules.

Chen Dan

The statement said the advertisement, with its leading presenter as a model, was not endorsed by the TV station, therefore damaging its image and legal rights. The statement said the TV station reserves the right of legal action against the activity organizer.

"My intentions were good," the paper quoted her as saying. "I hoped to draw people's attention to women's health, but because the format was inappropriate it caused a huge backlash. In future I will choose more suitable ways of publicising women's health."

Chen admitted that her modeling in the advertisement was not approved by her employer and she made a wrong decision and would never do such a thing again.

The advertisement provoked fierce debate online and in local media over the morality of using nudity to promote public interest causes, and whether the article was a commercial stunt for the women or Changsha's Shangmei Gynaecology Hospital.

"What a shame breasts have become the leading actor," the Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.

"This is a serious attack on women," fumed an online commentator. "It goes completely beyond the moral and aesthetic baseline."

The "Clever Girls" advertisement furore followed a controversy over several actresses who posed nude in support of breast cancer prevention in a lifestyle magazine in October 2005.