Philippe Boucher's Rendez-vous with . . . Elizabeth Whelan
Rendez-vous with . . . Elizabeth Whelan
Founder and President of the American Council on Science and Health
New York, NY, USA
whelan@acsh.org
By Philippe Boucher
Rendez-vous 130
Friday, February 22 2002
PB : Thank you Elizabeth for accepting our rendez-vous.
May I ask you to introduce yourself ?
Elizabeth Whelan: I am Elizabeth M. Whelan, founder and president of the New York-based American Council on Science and Health. ACSH is a consumer advocacy and educational organization, directed and advised by some 350 physicians and scientists. Our goal at ACSH is to assist consumers (via the media) in distinguishing real risks from hypothetical ones. My training/background is in the general fields of epidemiology and public health. I hold a Masters degree from the Yale School of Medicine and a Masters and Doctoral Degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Q1. You said you did not like the terms "tobacco control." Why?
Elizabeth Whelan: The term "tobacco control" plays right into the hands of those right-of-center journalists and public policy analysts who argue that those of us working in the anti-smoking/pro-health movement are motivated by a desire to control other people's lives and dictate what options are available to them.
Conservative and libertarian critics of the anti-smoking say we want to attack business and tell people what to do. Efforts to eliminate or at least reduce the mortality and morbidity of cigarettes are not about "control" but about education, awareness, and a desire to hold the tobacco industry to the same degree of accountability that we do other American corporations.
Q2. Can you elaborate about what you consider the need for an "exit strategy" for anti-tobacco advocates?
Elizabeth Whelan: Many in the anti-tobacco movement have, I believe, never defined their goal. That is, they have never spelled out a "sunset policy", a state of affairs that would allow an end of anti-smoking efforts. What is our goal? When will we stop? Is our goal to put the tobacco industry out of business? To, in effect, make cigarettes illegal? My "exit" strategy is to hold the Industry responsible for the consequences of its behavior. For now, that means supporting the lawsuits of individuals who were deceived by the Industry and suffered health consequences as a result. This is a free society and people must be left to make their own decisions, including decisions about smoking. But those decisions must be informed ones, and it is the express responsibility of the cigarette industry to provide detailed, specific, relevant information about the health risks of smoking to smokers and would-be smokers. Not only has the Industry failed miserably in this responsibility but beginning in the l930's, when medical data began to emerge about the health risks of smoking, the Industry consistently misrepresented those risks. For this misrepresentation--and the horrendous toll of cigarette-related disease and death it caused--they must be held accountable.
As they are held legally accountable for past deception, the Industry will have a clear incentive to be forthcoming about the risks of smoking--if for no other reason, to protect themselves against further litigation. There will come a point, perhaps, when the Industry regularly communicates in an understandable way the risks of smoking (this would include specifics about the relationship between risks and the number of cigarettes smoked and time over which one smokes, specifics about the irreversibility of cigarette-related health risks, specifics on the addictive nature of the habit, and more). At that point, the burden of responsibility will then shift from the cigarette manufacturer to the cigarette smoker. When that point is reached (we still have a great distance to go) and consumers have indeed been fully informed, that is about as far as you can go in a free society. Thus, it would be time for an exit for the current anti-smoking movement.
Q3. How do you assess the situation today in the USA? MSA funds are mostly used for other goals than tobacco prevention, but many states are considering tax hikes. Do you have any hope of new tobacco legislation under the present administration?
Elizabeth Whelan: The MSA is and was a total disaster in terms of potential for reducing tobacco mortality and morbidity. We at ACSH never supported it.
We knew the funds would be allocated to lawyers and the remaining funds for "tobacco education" would be hijacked for other purposes, thus turning the MSA into just another government tax revenue source. When it comes to cigarettes and heath, government is part (the main part) of the problem. Government is not and should never be considered the solution. If the government had not stepped in in l964 to give the Industry legal immunity (in the disguise of a mandated "Surgeon General's warning") on packs and later in ads), I believe the Industry would largely be toppled today--by the legal judgements that would have been made against them absent the Teflon coating that Congress' "label" gave them. The price of cigarettes would have soared, not because of taxes but because the cost of doing business would be passed on to smokers. By l980, if not sooner, the Industry would have come clean on the risks of smoking, issuing an industry-written label with very, very specific warnings.
I oppose taxes on cigarettes as a means of deterring smoking. Taxation simply makes the government more dependent on the revenues derived from the sale of tobacco. I agree that as the price of cigarettes increases smoking, particularly among youth, declines. But the price should increase as a cost of doing business, which it would have if government had not intervened to protect the Industry.
Q4. A recent report by Christian Aid expresses concerns about the way the tobacco industry provides dangerous pesticides and other chemicals to tobacco farmers in Brazil. Similar reports from Mexico have alleged that such chemicals were responsible for many deaths among the farm-workers by poisoning and were also inducing suicides. What do you think of such reports? What should be done?
Elizabeth Whelan: I believe it is a complete distraction to focus on pesticides or additives used in tobacco production. It is true that, unlike the case with food production, the use of pesticides on tobacco is not regulated. Obviously, pesticides can be misused. But whether or not pesticides are used, the inhalation of tobacco in the form of cigarettes is inherently hazardous and that is what we should focus on.
Q5. You have testified in the past in several lawsuits against the tobacco companies. New trials have started in Oregon and Kansas. Should the industry be concerned? Can litigation bring significant changes?
Elizabeth Whelan: As I mentioned, litigation--that is, successful litigation--will be a major incentive for the Industry to retreat from its pattern of deception and be totally forthcoming about the dangers of smoking, about the risks of cigarettes not because they are interested in public health but because their lawyers will tell the Industry to protect themselves from future litigation through complete and full disclosure. For this reason, I support litigation by those who were deceived and suffered as a result.
Q6. In your Feb. 7 "Smoked Out" article, you write that "compared to the legal treatment given other products, cigarettes are supra-legalŠthey are a product that is above the law." But you don't explain (in this article) why that is.
Elizabeth Whelan: While the Industry loves to complain it is "over-regulated," the exact opposite is true. Cigarette companies at this time are accountable to no one. Lawnmowers, step-stools, and baby carriages--even refrigerators--come complete with detailed consumer warning labels, even though these products are harmless when used as intended. Pharmaceuticals come with detailed descriptions of indications, contraindications, and adverse side-effects. Cigarettes get off scott-free. They are accountable to no one. Even when it comes to sales of tobacco to minors, it is the merchants, not the Industry, that get fined. (It seems to me more logical that the Industry--not the merchant--bear this responsibility. Indeed, if the cigarette manufacturers were held liable for sales to children, the companies would invest more time and energy in controlling the sales of cigarettes, which would play a major role in limiting underage access.)
Unlike food additives, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and consumer products, there is no regulatory agency overseeing tobacco--not that I would recommend such regulation. Other than restricting youth access, there is very little the FDA or other regulatory agencies can do to protect us from an inherently dangerous product other than to ban it, which they would not do. But most of all, cigarettes are above the law because Congress chose to shield them from the effects of litigation by means of the l964 Surgeon General's warning label. For an extra coating of legal Teflon, various states have enacted laws to prohibit litigation against tobacco companies. Yes, cigarette manufacturers are indeed above the law.
Q7. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Elizabeth Whelan: One of the greatest assets the Industry has--and they use it for all it is worth--is the looming ideological gap on the subject of cigarettes and health that exists between the political left and political right. Those on the right consider tobacco topics to be "liberal issues," and they want no part of them. The right seems to think the words "anti-smoking" and "big government" go together, so they ignore the topic. Even worse, they sometimes resort to defending tobacco use as an "inherent human right."
The left, on the other hand, will not listen to any possible commentary the right might make on tobacco--preferring to believe that the right's rejection of cigarette tax increases and the right's refusal to support a Justice Department legal action against tobacco companies are caused by tobacco funding, either to the Republican Party or to libertarian/conservative thinktanks.
There is no dialogue on topics of tobacco and health between left and right. All "anti-tobacco" legislation seems to come from the political left, which leaves roughly 50% of America mute as to what to do about this country's leading cause of premature death. ACSH is attempting to bridge that ideological gap. Our first contribution in that area was a white paper on the subject, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, published in August, 2000. It is available on our webpage: http://www.acsh.org/publications/reports/Ideological_Divide.pdf
Q8. Do you have new projects about tobacco?
Elizabeth Whelan: We have no specific new tobacco-related topics underway--just continuing the Industry-watching we have done for years, evaluating the women's magazines and how they report (or rather, don't report) on tobacco.
PB: Thank you Elizabeth for taking the time to be with us today.
ACSH Website: http://www.acsh.org
ACSH's Health Facts and Fears: http.//www.healthfactsandfears.com
Rendez-vous is supported by a contract from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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