Tobacco Documents Online

Mr. Chairman: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment on your latest legislative proposal in the field of tobacco and health, S. 1454. Over the years a special relationship has developed between us. I represent the Seventh District of Kentucky where tobacco is an essential element in our economy and our way of life. You have become the leading advocate of what is a vocal anti-tobacco movement in this country. Thus my constituents try to grow tobacco and your constituents try to restrict it. And as long as these attempts continue, I will be active in opposing them-- not, I hasten to add, for the sake of mere obstructionism, but because I sincerely believe the anti-tobacco cause to be an oversimplified solution to tremendously complex ard unsolved medical enigma. in the 1950's the Nation was beset by complex domestic and international problems. There'were those who attempted to solve them with a single, simple answer. It was all due to a Communist plot, and Coznmunists were found under every bed. Today, the same tendency seems O to be operating in the field of public health, and there ~ C11 O are those, most notably the Surgeon General, who find ~ . . GD . ~

2 f smoldering tobacco at the scene of every public health issue. Let me say that it is my aincere belief that witch hunting is as wrong now asz it was then. I challenge the credibility of the premise that cicarette smoking is the Nation's nurber one public health problcm, worse than heroin addiction, marijuana, alcoholism or automobile accidents. I challenge the credibility of a Surgeon General who would advance such a premise. The distinguished chairman, hourever, accepts the premise, and as a result he proposes in I3.R. 1454 to limit the "tar" and nicotine content of cigarettes to progressively lower and loc:er limits until the practice and the product eventually disappear. In the recent past, the Chairman under the same goad of biased public health reports proposed the elimination . N was unsupported by scientific evidence. With less evidence ~ than would have justified submitting a case to a jury, 04 this proposal would have driven many of the Nation's Ul of the tobacco price support program. I opposed the legislation because it would have been economically disasterous to the tobacco growers of Kentucky and it

3'ua 3 625,000 tobacco growers and their families off their land and into the urban ghettoes, offering them job retraining and welfare payments as consolation. As chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor I have been as strong a supporter as anyone of legislation to help all A.m.ericans achieve as high a living standard as they could attain. Consequently, I was totally opposed to a measure which in the name of fighting an alleged health hazard would uproot productive farmers and make them welf are recipients in our big cities. In my district a man with a half acre or one acre of tobacco is able--on his arrn--to raise and educate his family. He has always been his own best provider and I hope he will always be so. But let me get to the heart of the matter and question the basis on which the anti-tobacco advocates are now advancing this legislation. The Surgeon General's extreme insistence that cigarette smoking is the number one health problcm in the Nation fails to be supported N by the evidence. O N C1't O . Ut W ~ W

4 The tobacco growers of Kentucky have long asked to know what ingredient in tobacco as it is smoked is the cause of human disease, so that it could be removed. And so have I. The Surgeon General has not named it, which fact should be enough for anyone to reject this legislation. I for one favor effective medical research to find the cause or causes of cancer but the tobacco growers of Kentucky wonder why the Congress and the President have decided to spend $1.6 billion to conquer cancer if, as the Surgeon General says, cigarette smoking is the major cause. This inconsistency does not enhance the case the Surgeon General or advocates of this legislation attempt to make. The tobacco farmers of Kentucky are aware of the puzzling fact that nost smokers do not get the terrible diseases linked to tobacco while many non-smokers do. And so am I. The Surgeon General's exclusive interest in eliminating tobacco does not improve the case for this or similar punitive legislation. The people of Kentucky are curious about why it is so difficult for one branch of HM7 to determine that the

5 inhalation of coal dust causes black lung disease while it is so easy for another branch of HEW to determine that smoking causes emphysema. The inconsistent approach of HEW on thcse two matters in Kentucky seeks to deprive coal miners of black lung benefits on one hand and tobacco growers of cash for his crop on the other. Finally, Mr. Chairraan, I would like to offer for your serious consideration some of the apparent contra- dictions to the Surgeon General's anti-tobacco position that have crossed my desk. They represent to me, at least, grave causes for concern about the policy deter- minations being made in the Public Health Service. 1. The Council on Environmental Quality in its second annual report links emphy;ema, bronchitis and lung cancer to air pollution. The Surgeon General links them to tobacco. 2. The Environmental Protection Agency data shows that in 1969 all forms of transportation, but principally the automobile, released more than 100 million tons of carbon monoxide into the air. The Surgeon General wants to prohibit smoking in public places to cut down on the amount of carbon monoxide relcased.

6 3. A 1967 Public Health Service publication dealing 1' h with air pollution stated: "Deaths from lung cancer have been increasing rapidly in recent years, and while many factors are probably involved, the striking difference between the urban and rural raortality rates for lung cancer points to one of thc:,m--air pollution. The rate in our large metropolitan areas is twice the rural rate, even ;::itc:.r is r,de for differ- ences in :-~, n::ina riz.axts. " But the Surgeon General ignores this crucial evidence in his crusade against smoking. The President's Council on Environmental Quality in its first annual report to Congress in 1970 was properly cautious. It stated that: "The causes of chronic diseases which constitute the major public health problem of our time are difficult to detcrmine. Assessing the contribution of particular pollutants to these conditions is comolicated by the seemingly infinite variety of pollutants to which persons, particularly those in urban areas, are exposed from the day of their birth. And it is difficult to separate pollution from the.other biological and physical stresses to which people are sub- jected." My constitutents and I wonder why when it comes to tobacco the very same difficulties, coraplications, infinite varieties of chemicals, biological and physical stresses

.3u 7 7 are.ignored out of hand. My constitutents and I wonder why it is so easy for the Surgeon General to determine that smoking causes chronic diseases and so difficult for the Environmental Council to make the same determination regarding pollution. Can it be that tobacco is the easier target? Whatever the reason, the truth is we cannot have it both ways. If it is difficult to determine the cause of chronic disease from pollution it must be equally as difficult to assess causation from tobacco. The truth is, Mr. Chairman, that we do not know the truth. And it is time that we got the truth.