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So let me sum up. Mr. Califano, you come here today to claim 

 that the cigarette companies conducted a disinformation and sup- 

 pression campaign regarding the issues that you note have been in 

 the press and considered by this subcommittee recently: So-called 

 nicotine manipulation by secret processes employed by cigarette 

 companies, the decline in tar and nicotine levels of cigarettes and 

 what that means in terms of receipt by the smoker, animal tests 

 that demonstrate that animals will self-administer nicotine, the 

 role of nicotine in cigarettes as a positive reinforcer, and the debate 

 over the addictive nature of nicotine in smoking. 



You claim that, equipped with this supposedly suppressed infor- 

 mation, you would have acted differently during your tenure at 

 HEW. Yet a report that you authored 15 years ago raises all these 

 same issues, makes these same findings, or refers to sources that 

 did. This proves that you did have the information that some would 

 have us believe has only recently emerged and again that nothing 

 is new here. Isn't that correct? 



Mr. Califano. Mr. Bliley, it is not correct. If I may respond, 

 there was an enormous debate at HEW when I was Secretary on 

 the issue of whether or not cigarettes were addictive, and the arti- 

 cles that you are citing, they were articles on the other side of 

 those issues in that same Surgeon General's report that were at- 

 tached as part of the accumulation of data. 



I personally, as I indicated in my testimony, tried to get Surgeon 

 General Richmond to formally declare cigarettes addictive and nico- 

 tine addictive as Surgeon General Koop was able to do 10 years 

 later. I was — I recognized the dangers of smoking, and I wanted to 

 alert our people to them. 



The medical evidence, the research was not there. Had we had 

 the additional research of the tobacco companies — and I hope the 

 tobacco companies will come forward with every single bit of re- 

 search and every document they have in this area so that we can 

 lay all this out — we would have moved much more aggressively. We 

 would have welcomed the opportunity to regulate cigarettes. 



Second, it is the relationship between addiction and manipula- 

 tion that makes the manipulation so sinister. The tar was coming 

 down, cigarettes — they were producing low-tar cigarettes and low- 

 nicotine cigarettes — in quotes — trying to deceive the American peo- 

 ple in saying, "These are healthier cigarettes; you can smoke 

 these." 



Well, we now know — we now know that was nonsense, they are 

 not healthier cigarettes, they create cancer, they create heart dis- 

 ease, they create emphysema. So we did not have the formal find- 

 ing, and C. Everett Koop, who was as aggressive as any Surgeon 

 General in the history of this country in battling cigarettes, was 

 unable to make that finding until he had been in office a while. 



Mr. Bliley. But you admit — in your statement you said that 

 there is no such thing as a safe cigarette. 



Mr. Califano. That is correct. 



Mr. Bliley. And so you had the information. 



Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Bliley. 



Mr. Wyden. 



