Cancer discussions seem to be everywhere:
Tobacco Settlement Should Include Funds for Cancer
Research
BY DAMARIS CHRISTENSEN
c.1998 Medical Tribune News Service
WASHINGTON -- Any settlement in the legal dispute with tobacco
companies must include sufficient funding for biomedical research as
part of a long-term strategy to stop the epidemic of tobacco-induced
cancers, public-health experts said at a congressional hearing here
Thursday.
Smokers and former smokers account for a substantial portion of all
lung cancer cases in the United States. Current smokers are 15 times
more likely to develop lung cancer than those who have never
smoked. And although the risk of lung cancer declines after a person
stops smoking, former smokers still are up to four times more likely to
develop lung cancer than never-smokers, said Donald S. Coffey,
president of the American Association for Cancer Research and a
cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among Americans,
killing about 160,400 people each year.
''And lung cancer was not a major cancer until around 1940,'' soon
after cigarettes were introduced, Coffey said.
At the hearing, Coffey noted that health-care costs for all cancers
exceed $107 billion each year, most due to the treatment of lung,
breast and prostate cancers.
''However, we only invest about 2 percent of cancer's health-care
costs in research to find effective prevention measures, treatments and
cures for cancer,'' he said.
The tobacco settlement was worked out between the major tobacco
companies and several state attorneys general.
Under the proposed settlement, the tobacco industry would gain
immunity from further class-action lawsuits in exchange for paying
$368.5 billion over 25 years to settle smoking-related health claims in
40 states. As currently proposed, the settlement does not require the
money to be used for biomedical research into tobacco-related
ailments.
But the tobacco settlement ''is probably the most promising source for
increased biomedical funding,'' said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).
Hatch said he was ''heartened'' by Clinton's proposed 8.4 percent
budget increase for the National Institutes of Health, but noted that
Clinton's dependence on funding from the tobacco settlement for a
number of issues ranging from child care to Medicare support of
clinical trials could make it harder to get a tobacco settlement through
Congress.
Nonetheless, the proposed settlement is a once-in-a-generation
opportunity to make a difference in the health of all Americans,
especially the young, Hatch said. ''I think we have to do this.''
''The tobacco settlement represents a historic opportunity in this
country,'' agreed Dr. Harmon J. Eyre, executive vice president for
research and cancer control at the American Cancer Society in
Atlanta. He noted that the public-health community is divided over
whether to grant the tobacco industry immunity from some types of
liability and thus far had not united behind one bill in Congress.
Just in case the tobacco settlement does not pass Congress, funding
increases at the National Institute of Health should not be solely drawn
from these potential funds, Coffey said. He called for a stronger
emphasis on clinical research - ''the link between laboratory
discoveries and the advances in prevention, diagnosis and treatment
that improve medical practice.''
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