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Mr. Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for an ex- 

 cellent presentation, Mr. Califano. 



Let me join Chairman Waxman in saying that I also am very 

 glad that you are speaking out about the tobacco industry's at- 

 tempt to silence you. In my view, you are doing what the tobacco 

 industry fears most, and that is speaking out, bringing the sci- 

 entific facts to the American people, letting our citizens see the 

 health consequences of smoking, and my view is we are going to 

 win this fight because people like yourself, people in positions of in- 

 fluence, are willing to come forward, take risks, and we commend 

 you for it. 



Mr. Califano. Thank you, Mr. Wyden. 



Mr. Wyden. Let me, if I might, start by asking you this. As a 

 former attorney, I wonder if you might comment further on news 

 reports alleging that tobacco industry lawyers sought to insulate 

 tobacco companies from liability. My question to you is, what would 

 have been the ethical course for tobacco company attorneys who al- 

 legedly had access to research and studies indicating severe health 

 impacts relating to smoking? 



Mr. Califano. I think there are a whole series of ethical issues. 

 I think these are not easy questions, Mr. Wyden, for lawyers to 

 face. I do think that the legal profession in this area has got to 

 take a hard look at itself, that when you begin to say either destroy 

 documents — and I don't know whether anyone said destroy docu- 

 ments here, but we will see over time, I am sure — when you begin 

 to say don't conduct research, when you begin to say move the re- 

 search out of the United States so it can't be subpoenaed, we don't 

 want anyone to find out that we have this evidence that cigarettes 

 kill or that cigarettes cause heart disease when we are being sued 

 by people, I think there are serious questions about the ethics. 



There are ethical questions across the board here. I mean, what 

 of the ethics of scientists keeping — keeping this secret? What of the 

 ethics of businessmen who maintain their profits by selling some- 

 thing, saying things about it they know not to be true, suppressing 

 the evidence that they are lying as they are selling their product? 

 There are really serious ethical questions throughout. 



I mentioned the legal profession because I spent so much time 

 as a lawyer, and I think there really are profound issues here that 

 I hope the American Bar Association, Bill Hide, the president, will 

 take a good look at. 



Mr. Wyden. Let me ask you a question about Medicare, and 

 again I think this is an exceptional contribution you are making. 



I remember all my days in senior citizens centers, and you vir- 

 tually walk in and you see the horrible consequences of smoking 

 with seniors and others suffering, and I think it is a great contribu- 

 tion you are making with this Medicare analysis, and I am very 

 troubled by something I saw in one of the papers this morning indi- 

 cating that you felt that the share of Medicare costs attributable 

 to tobacco was going to increase because women who are heavy 

 smokers — this was reported in the New York Times — are beginning 

 to enter the covered 65 and older group. 



I have seen some trends along the lines of what you said with 

 advertising that would suggest that this is going to be a very seri- 

 ous problem, because a lot of the tobacco company advertising real- 



