http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/nation/97/09/12/tob4.20.html

Former FDA chief says tobacco deal can work

By NANCIE L. KATZ

Copyright 1997 Special to the Chronicle

WASHINGTON David Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug
Administration, Thursday asked Congress not to endorse any tobacco
settlement unless it ensures a reduction in teen smoking. That would
only happen, he said, if prices were increased by at least $1.50 to $2 a
pack.

As in other recent hearings, the fight to keep children from beginning
to smoke dominated discussion about the pact between the tobacco
industry and the attorneys general in 40 states, including Texas.

The deal calls for the industry to pay $386.5 billion over the next
quartercentury to cover medical costs of victims of tobaccorelated
diseases and to fund antismoking campaigns.

It also would impose sweeping restrictions on advertising and sales of
tobacco.

The settlement took a battering from members of the Senate Agriculture
Committee, who want the industry to increase its financial commitment to
cover the medical costs of Medicare patients and protect others not
covered in the pact, including tobacco farmers.

After the pact emerged in June, Kessler urged Congress to reject it. But
he softened his stance Thursday.

"I do believe today there can be a tobacco settlement," he said. "It
can't be a bailout of the tobacco industry. The fundamental question is
whether you can actually reduce the number of young people who smoke.

"Ask a smoker when he began and you will hear the tale of a child," he
added. "If you can reduce the number of young people who smoke, then the
deal is worth it."

Advocates of the settlement said it included measures that would
drastically cut teen smoking, including public education campaigns and
advertising strategies.

The pact envisions a price increase of 62 cents per cigarette pack.

That's not enough, Kessler said.

"The best data I have seen would call for a $1.50 to $2 per pack
increase. We know it's effective.

"(A settlement) must assure us that the number of young people who smoke
will diminish, that the tobacco industry changes the way it does
business and that the information the industry has about its cigarettes
... has full disclosure," he said.

The pact, which needs congressional approval, is unlikely to come to a
vote before next year.

Sen. Kent Conrad, DN.D., said he found the proposal "deficient," and
Sen. Tom Harkin, DIowa, said the deal "would not fly" in its current
form. Several senators called for more monetary compensation from the
industry.

The White House also is considering the pact. Mississippi Attorney
General Michael Moore, a key negotiator in the deal, said he, the
industry and the White House were hashing out disagreements.

J. Phil Carlton, a lawyer representing the tobacco industry said it was
unlikely the companies would budge.

"We have not agreed to change one word in this agreement," he said. The
industry is "at the edge," he said, and had negotiated an amount that it
could fairly present to shareholders.

"As far as money is concerned, I believe these companies have determined
that they are as far as they can go," Carlton said.

He rejected Kessler's call for a price hike, saying it would "create a
massive volume reduction and a massive contraband problem and put these
companies in serious financial jeopardy."

Carlton and the pact's advocates urged senators not to delay, calling
the deal "fragile." But those entreaties had little influence.

"The settlement is well short of what is required to cover just some of
the costs and to achieve the maximum goal, which is to reduce teen
smoking," said Sen. Richard Lugar, RInd., the committee chairman.

Jeffrey Harris, an economist from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, testified the industry's payments would only cover a third
of the hundreds of billions of dollars in medical costs for Americans
who get sick from tobaccorelated diseases.

Nor, he said, would the agreement come near its goal of reducing teen
smoking by half in five years.