13 



cerned that government may eventually be getting around to doing 

 the right thing. Dr. Kessler's scrutiny of tobacco has set off warn- 

 ing alarms throughout the industry because this drug, the drug of 

 choice to many millions of addicted Americans and the basis for a 

 $50 billion per year industry, may have to be proven safe under 

 FDA regulation in order to stay on the market. How many on this 

 panel or in this country would want to try to represent that side 

 of the case? 



Mr. Chairman, this hearing is not about freedom of choice or al- 

 leged government intrusion on matters of personal habits. It is 

 about an addiction that drains billions of American health care dol- 

 lars, kills many of our fellow citizens, and threatens the security 

 of our children. It is also about what is or isn't in tobacco and bla- 

 tant tobacco industry efforts to withhold information from the 

 American people, about a variety of agents and chemicals in to- 

 bacco which may pose serious health threats. 



Today I have a three-ring binder that contains lists of chemicals 

 and other agents in tobacco products. Under a lO-year-old law, the 

 lawyers for the industry have to submit these lists each year under 

 strict confidentiality to the Centers for Disease Control. According 

 to these lists, cigarettes contain ingredients so toxic that you could 

 not dump them in a landfill under the Federal environmental laws. 



These lists show that the Federal Government is allowing toxins 

 to be delivered directly to the bloodstream via the lungs, the most 

 efficient delivery system that nature has ever devised. Under the 

 law, public health officials have the right to review these lists and 

 decide whether specific agents may require changes to cigarette 

 package labels warning of health risks. 



I won't tell you what we had to do to get this binder. The indus- 

 try objected. It wasn't easy. But I will tell you, citizens of this coun- 

 try aren't going to get to see this binder because of the incredible 

 argument by the cigarette makers that these lists contain trade se- 

 crets. Apparently one of those secrets may be that some manufac- 

 turers are juicing up their products by adding extra amounts of nic- 

 otine. What else? 



I would like the American people to know exactly what is in 

 these lists, but I am bound from telling them by the confidentiality 

 provision of the law. I can say that m.y perusal of the documents 

 shows that these lists contain heavy metals, active agents and pes- 

 ticides and insecticides. It contains at least 13 ingredients that, by 

 FDA law, are not allowed in the foods that Americans eat. 



Possibly these are items that belong on warning labels. We will 

 never know, because the staff has found that for years no public 

 health official with access to these lists has even bothered to ask 

 for it in order to make even a cursory review. 



Mr. Chairman and colleagues, this industry has had its own way 

 for too long. It is time this list got a review. Therefore, at the ap- 

 propriate time, I would like to propose that this subcommittee con- 

 vene a special executive session if need be to review all 700 items 

 on this list with the health officials of our country. 



We ought to lift the cloud of tobacco smoke that has hovered over 

 these documents. These documents are not atomic secrets. They 

 aren't even confidential provisions of a trade treaty. It isn't even 

 the secret formula for Coca-Cola. These are matters of real con- 



