Just Say ‘No Deal’ to Big Tobacco, Ex-FDA Commissioner Urges

If everyone who has lost a family member to smoking-related illness did just one simple thing, members of Congress would get the message that the proposed national smoking settlement should not be approved, a former Food and Drug Administration chief said Monday.

Dr. David Kessler, who took on the tobacco industry during his six years as FDA commissioner, suggested that families should send photographs of their deceased loved ones to their elected representatives, with the words: “No Deal.”

“If you had every family send that in,” Kessler said, “you’d have the votes tomorrow” to reject the proposed $368.5-billion settlement, which critics say grants too many concessions to the tobacco industry.

Kessler, now dean of Yale University’s medical school, spoke at UCI during a daylong series of sessions on tobacco that explored public policy issues as well as scientific research. He was the chief speaker for the Tanner Lectures on Human Values, an annual event that rotates among a small number of universities in the United States and Great Britain.

Kessler listened to fellow panel members talk about previously secret documents showing the industry has concealed information about cigarettes causing cancer, and about the need for tough legislation restricting sales and advertising to minors. He said the issue boiled down to one question: whether elected officials “will break the hold the tobacco industry has had on this country.”

Even though tobacco companies have seemingly unlimited funds and attorneys to fight and influence, he said, “I don’t know why Congress has to talk about settlements. When you have the power to enact legislation, you don’t have to ask permission.”

Kessler’s talk came just days after a Minnesota judge ordered the nation’s major cigarette companies to turn over 39,000 confidential documents that allegedly show evidence of crime or fraud. The tobacco companies appealed the decision Monday.

Luanne Nyborg, with the Minnesota attorney general’s office, which filed the lawsuit against the companies, was one of the panelists Monday at UCI.

She displayed several previously secret tobacco industry documents that spoke of targeting teenage smokers and the addictive qualities of nicotine.

“There is tons of this,” she said.

But if the settlement is approved, the tobacco companies will receive immunity from liability in any future consumer lawsuits, such as Minnesota’s, she said.

“We don’t think they deserve immunity,” Nyborg said. “We don’t see why they should be given any protections at all.”

Panelist Dr. Dileep Bal, with the American Cancer Society, said that when the settlement was announced last June, “this deal might have been a reasonable one.”

But in the last eight months, the tobacco companies have had to reveal hundreds of internal documents that showed they have concealed information about nicotine’s addictive qualities and “knowingly and carefully manipulated” the drug in the cigarettes.

The settlement would give the tobacco companies “a public relations cleansing,” he said. “That is something many would like to withhold.”

Kessler said the government’s most effective argument for enacting tough legislation and pursuing lawsuits is the protection of children.

“The [tobacco] industry has had the country believe that smoking is a matter of choice,” but their documents about nicotine addiction and the targeting of teenagers refute that position, he said. Because it is an addiction, it is not a choice, and “it’s a child deciding to use something addictive,” he said. “No lawmaker will be able to defend that.”

Kessler said the release of previously secret tobacco industry documents also contain years of scientific research that can be used by doctors and public health officials to combat nicotine addiction.

“They’ve studied for years the pharmaceutical effects of nicotine,” he said in an interview.

While there are nicotine gum and patches to help smokers quit, he said, more effective methods could be developed by using the tobacco industry research and turning the tables. After all, he said “the cigarette is one of the most effective drug delivery devices ever.”

Public health officials also have much to learn from the tobacco industry when it comes to understanding the psyche of children. The tobacco companies know to appeal to adolescents’ quest for rebellion and independence, he said.

Public health officials need to use the same tactic to get young people to never start smoking, he said. The most effective campaigns, he said, demonstrate to young smokers how they are being manipulated by the tobacco companies.