From: SMOKEFREE@compuserve.com
Date: Wed, 09/08/04
Comprehensive analyses of the FDA tobacco bill
are available at: www.notobaccobailout.org
- - - - -
Tobacco coalition crumbling
By Josephine Hearn
The Hill
September 8, 2004
http://www.hillnews.com/news/090804/tobacco.aspx
Public-health advocates, who have for years pressed for
government regulation of cigarettes, are suddenly divided
on whether a pending bill in Congress deserves their support.
This dispute comes at a time when top lawmakers are mulling
whether to increase the government's power significantly
in order to reduce smoking.
Health advocates outside the Washington Beltway have
broken with Washington-based health groups to oppose
legislation that would allow the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) to regulate cigarettes.
The state and local health activists charge that the FDA
bill, based on a compromise worked out between cigarette
maker Altria and the D.C.-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free
Kids (TFK), will do more to solidify Altria's market
dominance than it will to reduce smoking-related illnesses.
Congress is set to begin delicate negotiations over the
FDA bill as part of a conference convened for an
international tax bill, which would repeal the foreign
sales corporation/extraterritorial income tax regime. An
intensifying debate over the FDA language could prevent
lawmakers from acting on the tax bill this year.
"We feel that this legislation, if enacted, would not only
be detrimental to the public's health, but would cause
severe, possibly destructive, harm to the entire tobacco-
control movement," wrote Michael Siegel, an associate
professor in Boston University's School of Public Health,
in a posting to a tobacco-control e-mail list in July.
Siegel and his allies argue that the bill would limit the
FDA's authority, prohibiting it from developing meaningful
regulations while giving the public the impression that
regulated cigarettes were safer.
They are also concerned about the wisdom of making a deal
with Altria, the perennial archnemesis of tobacco-control
advocates, and their lack of input in the process. Altria
is the parent company of cigarette giant Philip Morris.
"FDA regulation is basically a stamp of approval for
cigarettes. Philip Morris will be the beneficiary of this,"
said Bill Godshall, executive director of Smokefree
Pennsylvania. "The whole process of how this occurred,
the secret negotiations, is troubling. ... [TFK President]
Matt Myers does not represent the whole public health
community."
Until now, opposition among health advocates has been
muted, with many deferring to Myers and other D.C. groups
to achieve the longtime goal of FDA regulation of tobacco.
Myers disputed criticism that TFK had struck a deal with
Altria on its own.
"There are a few isolated individuals who have complained
about the process. [But this outcome] was the result of
years of discussions within the public-health community.
.... You couldn't get everyone in the public-health
community to believe today is Tuesday. This bill has as
broad and deep support as any piece of legislation I've
worked on," Myers said yesterday.
As recently as several years ago, the idea of FDA
regulation was practically dead. Tobacco companies were
unified in their opposition. Then, in a rare reversal,
Altria opted to back regulation, believing it would
legitimize the industry.
Other companies -- R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson,
and Lorillard -- remain opposed, but Altria's strong
lobbying has given the measure new life. TFK negotiated
the language of the bill with Altria this spring with
the help of Sens. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) and Edward
Kennedy (D-Mass.).
TFK has also worked with the Washington-based American
Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the
American Cancer Society to craft the bill. Fifty-seven
health and religious organizations, including the
American Medical Association and the American Public
Health Association, sent a letter yesterday to senators
calling for swift action on the FDA bill.
Supporters of the FDA bill have linked it with a popular
bill to provide a quota buyout to tobacco farmers, a
measure long sought by tobacco-state legislators. Those
two bills have in turn been added as an amendment to
the Senate version of the international tax measure.
As the whole amalgamation of tax and tobacco language
heads into conference this fall, much of the debate will
center on whether conferees will retain the FDA and
buyout portions.
Opposition to the FDA language began growing over the
summer, even as groups in favor of it traveled the
country, drumming up support in the districts of key
lawmakers.
In the first week of July, Stanton Glantz, a leading
tobacco-control advocate and a professor at the
University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), wrote
an e-mail to colleagues advising them to abandon the bill
because "it would be good for Philip Morris' bottom line."
"It is ... important to consider the fact that public
health has never made a compromise with the tobacco
industry that, in the long term, served the public health.
.... In my view, the bill represents but the latest example
of how much better the industry is at long term and broad
strategic thinking than our side is," he wrote.
Glantz excerpted arguments from two other anti-tobacco
experts -- Ruth Malone, a UCSF nursing professor, and
Michael Cummings, a research scientist at Roswell Park
Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. Malone noted the public
relations benefits Altria would enjoy from the FDA bill.
"If this passes, Philip Morris will be able to say that
they have proved themselves responsible because they
support reasonable FDA regulation. They will be able to
say that all their products meet FDA regulations. They
may event put it on the pack," she wrote.
Cummings and colleague David Hohn wrote to members of
Congress on Aug. 11 outlining a series of concerns. They
argued that the bill would hinder the FDA's authority to
regulate and pointed out it would also prevent the FDA
from banning any class of tobacco products, banning
nicotine, increasing the legal age required to buy
cigarettes and curbing the sale of tobacco in certain
kinds of establishments.
Siegel said that the legislation would essentially freeze
the current market, making it impractical for companies
to introduce safer products. It would also continue to
allow cigarette makers to make misleading claims about
safeness, he said.
Myers countered that this bill was "as strong if not
stronger" than earlier FDA regulation bills and that
suspicion of Altria should not derail the effort.
"The public-health community is about saving lives.
Should we give up just because one tobacco company
believes it will do better against its competitors in
a regulated environment? ... On the whole, we believe
Philip Morris moved [further than the public-health
groups did] to get to this compromise."
.
|
