Tobacco Documents Online

JACKSONVILLE, FL FLORIDA T1MES-UNIOM D. 159,705-5. 207.224 JACI(SONVILLE METROPOLITAN AHEA - Assouated Prsss "Once the public realizes the cigarette industry might be culpable for the death of someone that would be a revolutionary change. Fortnor PTeydent Carter . I

Carter says his policy center may aid cigarette damage suits By Katie Wood Staff writ.r ATL.ANTA.- Former President Jimmy Car- ter said yesterday that his Emory University Policy Center may act as a source of legal in- formation for lawsuits to collect damages from cigarette manufacturers for the disease their products cause. That was one of 25 recommendations pro- duced by a three-day conference on health care sponsored by the Carter Center. Carter said he and his staff will be "pursuing means by which we can reduce the threat to. American health through cigarettes." Having his center serve as a fepostory of le- 'gal material tor cases against cigarette maau- facturers is "one of the options we will constd- er," he said. "Once the public realizes the cigarette indus- try might be culpable for the death of someone, that would be a revolutionary change," Carter said. He added that such legal warfare is a ltlce- ly course of action for anti-smoking advocates with or without the help of hts own policy cen- ter. Dr. Jesse Steutfe4l, president of the Medical College of Georgia and former U.S. surgeon general, said earlier that such lawsuits, lf suc- cessful, would mean the end of business for ctg- arette companies because of the enormous damages they would be forced to pay to victuns of oktng-related diseases and their families. Ste e reporting the results of a workshop looking for new ways to reduce smoking, called for several lines of attack, including restraints on cigarette advertistng, changes in medical school curnculum. a greater emphasis on pub- {!c education and a barrage of lawsuits seelun~ compensation from cigarette manufacturers for the deaths and iWtesses of smokers. "Our overall message is that we should make non-amolting the social norm. Smoking should be made socially unacceptable," Stemfeld said. The purpose of the three-day conference was to determine ways of combatting 13 prevent- able health problems that 4e responsible for 80 percent of the deaths in the Untted States. In addition to smoking, health experts were analyzing other rislt factors such as alcohol abuse, unintended pregnancies, mental illness aqd iniunes. Steuiteld said he thinks that smoking eventu- ally will be eltminated. When asked why his presentation did not in- clude the slogan "A smoke-free society by the year 2000," Steinfeld responded, "Why wait so long?" Despite that bit of optimism, Steinfeld ad- mitted that eliminating smoking is a difficult problem. f"Cigarette smoking is not a rational act. This is the reason tl's difficult to educate folks about it," he said. Most of the strides that have been made in eliminating other public health problems have been in areas such as unmunuation where the patient or the public takes a passive role, he sard. "We have done far less well when our citizens were responsible for their own health,"' Steut- feld said. The report on smokung was one of the longest presented at the conference. ~ But, as one panelist noted, smoking accounts for more preventable deaths than any other of the topics on the agenda.