Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #106994

Martin T. Donohoe, MD, FACP, Portland State University, Old Town Clinic, 3718 Rivers Edge Drive, Lake Oswego, OR 97034, 503-819-6979, martin.donohoe@verizon.net

The WHO has spent the last three years crafting a Tobacco Control Treaty, which exempts tobacco control from free trade challenges, limits tobacco advertising, cracks down on tobacco smuggling, standardizes packaging, and improves warning labels. Despite US opinion surveys showing overwhelming public support for the treaty's goals, at the behest of William Steiger, director of the US Office of Global Health Affairs (and a godson of George Bush, Sr.), the US delegation to the treaty talks attempted to scuttle the agreement in the name of free speech and free trade. The current administration has strong ties to Big Tobacco. President Bush's Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, was a lobbyist/strategist for Phillip Morris (Altria); Daniel Troy, now the FDA's chief counsel, represented the tobacco industry when it sued the FDA over tobacco ad regulation; and former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson received $72,000 in campaign contributions from Phillip Morris executives when he was governor of Wisconsin, and formerly advised the primary tobacco lobbying firm in Washington, DC. Tobacco companies have given more than $20 million to Republican candidates for federal office since 1997.

Only when its sole ally Germany dropped its opposition to the treaty, did the US sign on. However, Congress must still ratify, and President Bush sign, the treaty. Nevertheless, the US is the world's leading cigarette exporter, and US tax money has been used to assist corporations marketing tobacco in the developing world.

Suggestions for activists to combat Big Tobacco and support the Treaty will be discussed.

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