[through Glenn Kranzley <kranzley@mcall.com> per the cover-memo that follows the piece]
 
 

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Dignifying Avoidable Pathos

Allentown has prematurely buried an icon, and this doctor is ordering you to lament this loss and to visualize why you must stop others from suffering a similar fate.  Then you will appreciate why the Public Health is endangered by the Master Settlement Agreement between the state government and Big Tobacco.  You will then see that Pennsylvanians must beware of this "gift"--just as the Trojans should have feared the Greek's Horse--for they threaten to give this killer-industry immunity
from regulatory oversight.

Donald Hunt, age 53, died from lung cancer on New Year's Eve.  His industrious wife, local newswoman Kathy Craine, celebrated his accomplishments (a cable TV pioneer with Service Electric, and an army veteran) by lining three walls of a ballroom (in which his wake was held) with a sampling of his community accomplishments and awards.  This was a bitter-sweet experience, to the extreme.

During a unique funeral mass, mourners were invited to add to remarks from family and friends; most noted his humor and energy, while wondering aloud what we're missing because he died so young.  As his doctor, I worked closely with Kathy as he quietly fought--for nine months--a virulent lung cancer exclusively caused by cigarettes.  Inevitably and repeatedly, I was exposed to excerpts of how Allentown adored him,   such as when 10,000 citizens gave him a standing ovation at the opening of Musikfest.

Essentially, the pathos of his passing was shared with dignity, but my pain was amplified by knowing this event--repeated 400,000 times annually in America--was avoidable.  The dozen-or-so smokers hovering at the bar were treated to an impromptu smoking cessation class, and I consciously integrated the "social pressure" to quit that Don would have been too polite to cite.  Kathy, charming as ever, tolerated my excess.

All this unnecessary anguish-including that suffered by the patient-is slated to be integrated into society, courtesy of the deal between Big Tobacco and Big Government.  I've sued repeatedly because the Attorney General is running interference for murderers, while politicians (and editorialists) act mesmerized by millions of pay-off dollars.

My arguments against the Settlement are based on the denial of due process that it would foist upon the public, allowing Blood Money to buy legal immunity against enforcement of future misconduct.  Already during this past year, the tobacco industry has repeatedly violated the Agreement, but the Attorney General has been indecisive and ineffective when pressured to enforce it.  Billboard advertising, youth-oriented marketing, and indiscriminate mail-order distribution-supposedly ended-are rampant under his watch.

The Morning Call editorial mistakenly reported the courts have rejected these pleas.  Instead, the courts have denied me (and presumably, anyone but the Attorney General) the "standing" to challenge this private deal…the largest settlement of civil litigation in our nation's history.  That's why I'm hoping to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, while pursuing direct challenges against both Big Tobacco (for violating the Agreement) and the Attorney General (for tolerating such behavior).
 
The editorial correctly reported my fear that the money generated by the Agreement will be diverted from funding Medicaid and tobacco control.  Do not forget that the lawsuit was filed, ostensibly, to recoup the fiscal impact of tobacco-related illnesses, and do not forget that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls for 25% of these monies to be directed at treating the cause of this epidemic:  prevention and cessation programs.

The Attorney General considers me "dangerous" because I have been sounding an alarm that my Public Health colleagues have failed to amplify; everyone wants the money.  Privately, they rationalize their deafness by recalling how they have been chronically under-funded by both political parties.  They know how "dangerous" this precedent-setting Agreement threatens to become--indeed, has become--yet they remain silent.

That's why I'm pursuing this work.  Visit my Web-Site for further information, and you can hyperlink directly into the primary documents.  Make your own decision, and allow the anguish of avoidable Disease, Disability and Death to strike you in the heart.  Then, ask yourself how many more Don Hunts can we lose before we transform our anger into constructive action against the true culprit and those who would serve as its apologists.

Big Tobacco will only be able to fund this agreement if people keep smoking.  Therefore, this pact with the Commonwealth creates an incestuous relationship, one that ensures no one can force the government to force tobacco manufacturers to comply with it.

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Robert B. Sklaroff, MD, is a Montgomery County Medical Oncologist.  His Web-Site is http://members.home.net/rsklaroff/homepage.html.  He invites your critique.

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You requested 700-800 words; this is 759, and it does a bit more than responding to your editorial and updating my appeals.  It's a first-draft (subject to editing, of course) but it may be more reader-friendly than another legal brief depicting the offset.  I
appended the document, also, so that the *underlined* words can be considered for *italicization* (although I may have overdone it a bit).

Frankly, I avoided confronting the "Christmas Gift" and "potential-collaboration" themes that would have been more directly
derivative of your editorial, for I've learned that few readers would recall the specifics thereof (and it consumes excess space re-capping key points).  I did mainstream these concepts, however, reversing their impact.

During the hour that our motorcade halved Allentown, frustrated drivers had to wonder who had died.  Timely publication of this essay will enlighten them and, perhaps, alleviate some of Kathy's tears.