Health Coalition to Offer Tobacco Policy in 30 Days

Racing to shape public perceptions and influence potential legislation before tobacco industry settlement negotiations are wrapped up, a coalition of health advocacy groups pledged Thursday to produce a “blueprint for tobacco control” within 30 days.

The ad hoc group, headed by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David A. Kessler, said that its mission is to pull together national public health leaders into a “united front” and to offer their opinions of a “national tobacco policy” to congressional leaders and White House officials.

The group’s action comes as settlement negotiations drag on between tobacco company representatives and numerous state attorneys general who have filed lawsuits against the industry, and as the patience of some lawmakers appears to be wearing thin.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told reporters that time for getting a negotiated deal through Congress may have passed. Depending on the details of any agreement, congressional action and White House approval could be necessary.

“A magic moment comes and if you don’t get it, it’s gone,” Lott said Wednesday. “I think they’re on the edge of losing [a settlement] because they’ve let it drag on too long.”

However, the Koop-Kessler health group said that its goal is not dependent on the tobacco talks. “This committee is not seeking a settlement,” Koop said Thursday as he opened the discussion among leaders from 20 health groups and anti-tobacco grass-roots organizations. “I am preparing myself for a plan to improve the health of this nation” regardless of what the talks produce, he said.

Underscoring the public-relations value of its offensive, the group gave the Washington media unusual access to a nuts-and-bolts strategy meeting. For 2 1/2 hours, attendees debated goals and agreed to form five committees that will study health-related, anti-smoking proposals. The groups--organized around issues of children’s health, smoker-cessation programs, secondhand smoke concerns, economic issues and nicotine regulation--are scheduled to report back to the coalition before it meets again in about two weeks.

“We need a blueprint set by the public health community that the American people can support,” Kessler said in his opening comments. “We should not focus on the tobacco settlement talks but rather focus on what is necessary to establish a national tobacco policy for the next 20 to 30 years.”

Meanwhile, Mississippi Atty. Gen. Mike Moore added some new wrinkles to the settlement talks. About half of the money states are seeking in lawsuits intended to recoup funds spent by Medicaid to cure smokers’ ills came from the federal government, Moore said Thursday, and he has proposed that the funds be retained by the states in a settlement and that they be earmarked to provide health care for the nation’s 10 million uninsured children.

Moore, who repeatedly has emphasized that his major goal is reducing smoking among the nation’s youth, said in an interview that the idea first came up in a meeting he had with Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey several weeks ago.

Moore, who filed the first of 33 Medicaid recoupment suits against the industry, also said that a revised proposal he has been working on “is very hard line” toward the industry.

Though he would not provide precise figures, Moore indicated that the total settlement pot would be higher than earlier published figures--which have ranged from $250 million to $375 million, and he said that the duration of the payout period might extend beyond the 25 years reported earlier. “It may run in perpetuity. There probably would be a fixed amount” that the industry would pay each year plus an inflation factor, Moore added.

Fulwood reported from Washington and Weinstein from Los Angeles.