American Cancer Society Continues to Lie About the Origins of FDA Tobacco Law

The American Cancer Society continues to deceive the American public by telling us that Big Tobacco opposed the FDA tobacco legislation enacted by Congress last year.

John Seffrin, the CEO of the American Cancer Society, was quoted in a HealthDay article as stating: "The American Cancer Society, along with the broader public health community, fought the tobacco industry for more than a decade to get this historic legislation passed."

The Rest of the Story

The statement is simply not true. The biggest supporter of the FDA tobacco legislation, and a contributor of enormous lobbying expenditures in support of the bill, was none other than Philip Morris, the nation's largest tobacco company.

Why does the American Cancer Society have to continue to lie like this? Why are they seemingly incapable of telling the American people the truth: that Philip Morris supported this bill?

I find it ironic that one of the main purposes of the legislation was supposedly to end the lies being propagated by Big Tobacco, but that in order to support the legislation, the anti-smoking groups like the American Cancer Society waged a campaign of deception and lies of their own.

Unfortunately, the rest of the story is that the campaign of deception continues to this day. Even after accomplishing its goal of passing the FDA legislation, the American Cancer Society is still not capable of telling the American people the truth.