Global Settlement of Tobacco Litigation: Congressional Hearing |
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Page 64 - I would like to put this in a little bit of context again for you, since it has been a long time since the hearing opened.
Page 60 - all internal tobacco company documents that bear upon the public health must be disclosed," and that industry claims of attorney-client privilege or work-product privilege should be waived (Koop-Kessler Report, pages 16 and E-3). This is crucial. In its practical effect, the proposed settlement would allow these companies to conceal forever their smoking guns — a million pages of top secret documents they have hidden for decades behind claims of attorney-client privilege— documents no one has...
Page 76 - What we did is specifically we asked the tobacco companies to have a new privilege log that is inclusive of all the Minnesota provisions and inclusive of the Mississippi and all the other States, so that we can particularly identify anything that they have claimed for attorney-client privilege or work product privilege. But on the research issues, there is a provision on page 68, the last page, and we put this in for a reason, and I will read it. It says: No original laboratory research relating...
Page 60 - Koop-Kessler Plus" approach. This industry must feel some financial pain. In contrast to this goal, the proposed settlement would guarantee them pain-free penalties. It asks Congress to let them shift the entire burden of the settlement onto smokers, in higher prices. As if that's not bad enough, the proposal would then declare that this purported punishment would not even...
Page 55 - I understand that there are no consumer protection laws in that State and there are no antitrust laws in that State. So each of the cases are premised upon different not only law, but perhaps different facts. I think it is important to understand that. Now, unlike any other case, public or private, in Minnesota, we have forced the industry to create under court supervision two document warehouses with the largest collection of tobacco industry documents in the world, some 33 million pages. This month...
Page 60 - Again, the proposed settlement fails this test and, in my view, contains subtle language that will severely limit the existing powers of states and cities to regulate this industry. For example, it explicitly bans for five years all state laws of the type already adopted in Massachusetts and Minnesota, requiring tobacco companies to disclose for the first time some of the harmful chemicals added to cigarettes. After the fiveyear ban, states would have to petition for some kind of undefined federal...
Page 50 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. First I want to thank the Chairman for the opportunity to appear before this committee, and I thank him for inviting me here today. I think that from the days in 1982 when we walked the streets of...
Page 82 - ... audience. The media continue to portray smoking as a normal activity that is enjoyed by everyone who is happy, independent, successful, thin and sexy. Advertising pushes all the right buttons in the minds of a developing teenager. A 13-year old wants to be like a 17-year old and a 17-year old want to be like a 24-year old. So what does the tobacco industry do? Advertise tobacco products on race cars, portray models who are socializing with large groups of smiling people, and have wafer-thin women...
Page 61 - By its express terms, the proposed settlement would let the companies pass the so-called "penalties" through to smokers, who would end up paying about 50 cents more for a pack of cigarettes. In many other countries where these same companies do business — quite profitably, I might add — the governments already collect far more. The Koop-Kessler Committee has called for such a two-dollar per-pack increase, citing evidence this would cut teen smoking in half (Koop-Kessler Report page B-7). A leading...
Page 81 - The extraordinary shifts that have been taking place in the public and political arenas have the potential to directly benefit the health of children. It is from the perspective of children and their health and well-being that the American Academy of Pediatrics offers our expertise and suggestions related to the tobacco settlement proposal (settlement) negotiated by representatives of forty of the nation's Attorneys General and the tobacco industry.