160 



cohort tabulation for each of these risk factors. This will help us 

 and the press to determine the validity of your study. 



Thank you, Mr, Chairman. 



Mr. Waxman. Thank you Mr. Bliley. 



Mr. Wyden. 



Mr. Wyden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 

 commend you for calling this session today and particularly to have 

 former Secretary Califano. 



I think this subcommittee in recent months has taken a special 

 look, Mr. Califano, at the ramifications of smoking for children, and 

 I have shared Chairman Waxman's views that is exceptionally im- 

 portant because we know that a substantial number of smokers are 

 hooked before they are age 18. 



But I think that you, with this new study, are making a very im- 

 portant contribution by turning the debate over smoking as it re- 

 lates to senior citizens and to Medicare. 



I think you and I have talked about it before, but I was, at home, 

 the codirector of the Gray Panthers for a number of years before 

 I was elected to the Congress, and I have to tell you, in my view, 

 one of the saddest aspects of American life is to see senior citizens 

 suffer as a result of smoking and to see all these problems of em- 

 physema and heart disease and the like, and I think the contribu- 

 tion that you are making with this report has at the bottom line 

 the basic kind of proposition that if you want to protect the Medi- 

 care program, you ought to try to discourage smoking, and I think 

 that is an important contribution and look forward to your analysis 

 today. 



Mr. Chairman, one additional comment, if I might, with respect 

 to the tobacco executives who will be coming on Friday. It seems 

 to me that if those tobacco executives had reason to know that nic- 

 otine was addictive and if those tobacco executives had reason to 

 know that tobacco smoking was carcinogenic, and if those tobacco 

 executives manipulated the law to insulate themselves from civil li- 

 ability, then my view is that the American people ought to have a 

 right to know that and they ought to have a right to know whether 

 or not these corporate executives protected their interests and their 

 corporate profits rather than the health of the American people. 



So I think the session that you have scheduled for Friday is a 

 very important one. It is time to lift the veil of secrecy on the to- 

 bacco industry in this country. Friday's session is a step in that di- 

 rection. I look forward to our witnesses and yield back. 



Mr. Waxman. Thank you Mr. Wyden. 



Mr. McMillan. 



Mr. McMillan. I thank the chairman and would like to add my 

 welcome to Mr. Califano who has given this country distinguished 

 service, and we appreciate that. 



Mr. Chairman, I know you are well aware of my particular inter- 

 est in controlling excessive costs in health care. I serve on the 

 Budget Committee and have brought up in this broad a committee, 

 issues related to Medicare and Medicaid over a long period of time. 



Entitlement spending, as we all know, has basically been driving 

 the budget deficit for the better part of the last decade and, unless 

 we do something, will continue to drive it for the next decade. It 

 clearly needs our focused, careful attention. 



