FP Report -- March 1999
AAFP encourages Janet Reno to sue tobacco companies
A month before President Bill Clinton said the federal government should sue tobacco companies to recoup Medicare costs, the Academy and other groups asked Attorney General Janet Reno to do just that.
"We urge you to file suit on behalf of the federal government to recover the Medicare costs associated with tobacco-related disease," said AAFP Board Chair Neil Brooks, M.D., of Rockville, Conn., and others in a letter to Reno.
"The costs to Medicare for providing health care for tobacco-related disease are staggering," said Brooks and nine other leaders in a public health coalition. "The tobacco industry should not be allowed to profit by transferring to the taxpayers the cost of medical care to treat diseases which its products cause."
Clinton suggested a federal lawsuit in his State of the Union address Jan. 19 and included about $20 million in the proposed fiscal year 2000 budget for the Justice Department to explore the lawsuit's feasibility. Brooks and leaders of other groups in the Effective National Action to Control Tobacco coalition wrote Reno Dec. 8.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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