WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- A multimillion-dollar inside-the-beltway disinformation advertising campaign launched this week by a tobacco industry front group seeks to confuse the public and Congress by lying about the facts and hiding its true agenda.

This was the response issued today by the Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds to the kick-off of the $30 million advertising blitz sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK). This comes as part of its frantic efforts to revive the moribund proposed national tobacco settlement sent to Congress by the tobacco industry and 40 state attorneys general.

Kick-off ads have appeared in The Washington Post and other publications. More are slated in the weeks and months to come.

The hidden agenda of CTFK is congressional enactment of the June 20, 1997 tobacco industry proposal that would provide it with immunity from class action lawsuits -- the one legal instrument that could make the industry shape up.

The ads are replete with outright falsehoods and wild distortions of fact in an effort to make it appear to the reader that 1,000 children each day die "early" of smoking.

There is no mention in the text of the advertisements or in the scientific and public health literature dealing with tobacco that would lead to the conclusion that 1,000 kids who take up smoking die each day.

It isn't 1,000 kids that die from tobacco each day it is 1,000 adults who die from tobacco each day. U.S. Public Health Service statistics show that fully 40% of these adults are blue-collar workers who are among the 33 million that rely on the workers' health care funds for medical coverage. How would granting the tobacco industry immunity from class action lawsuits put an end to these 1,000 deaths per day?

Neither the so-called "global" settlement nor the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids addresses the problems of these adults, an omission the workers' funds considers egregious.

Far from ending these 1,000 deaths per day, granting immunity to the tobacco industry would prolong the situation for another 30-50 years, the time it would take for Congress to address this issue again.

Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids joined in the negotiations between the tobacco industry and Congress and was a party to the deal. In announcing the deal to the media, a tobacco executive described CTFK as a "public health" organization. The fine print of the deal contained a section that would provide $500 million a year for 10 years to an organization, yet to be named, whose structure met certain criteria. The structure in question bore a startling resemblance to that of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

Payment of that $500 million per year is conditioned directly upon passage of a bill by Congress granting lawsuit immunity to the tobacco industry.

Dr. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States and Dr. David A. Kessler, former Administrator of the Food and Drug Administration are both opposed to immunity.

They have been joined by a wide variety of public health and grass roots organizations. These include the American Medical Association and the American Lung Association.

The Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds is a grouping of more than 2,500 multi-employer health funds covering some 33 million Americans: workers, retirees and their families.

These funds have filed class action suits against the tobacco industry in 29 states seeking reimbursement of monies spent treating tobacco-related diseases. Nationwide, the funds spend more than $3.3 billion per year on such claims. The money to support the funds is collectively bargained which means that each dollar spent on tobacco-related claims is a dollar that would have gone into a workers' paycheck.

The suits charge that the tobacco industry intentionally targets blue-collar workers in the same manner it targets children as young as age 12.

U.S. Public Health statistics show these blue-collar workers smoke at more than double the national rate, and at four times the rate of white-collar professionals. Unfortunately the mortality tables amply reflect these statistics.

Fully 40 percent of the children of blue-collar workers have taken up smoking by the time they reach age 18. By federal law, every penny of monies gained by the funds as a result of their suits must go directly to the funds. A major goal of the suits is to pay for the creating and implementation of effective smoking cessation and prevention programs aimed at blue-collar workers and their families.

SOURCE: Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds

CONTACT: David A. Jewell, 202-293-1735, for the Coalition for Workers' Health Care Funds

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