WASHINGTON, March 16, 2004 - All former U.S. Secretaries of Health, Education and Welfare and Health and Human Services; all former U.S. Surgeons General; and all former Directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today launched The Citizens' Commission to Protect the Truth to convince tobacco companies to continue financing the Public Education Fund. This fund, established under the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the states and tobacco companies, provides the financial resources for The American Legacy Foundation to conduct truth®, the most effective media campaign in reducing tobacco use by children and teenagers.

"Never in our nation's history has such a group of all former top federal health officials united with a single common goal," said Commission Chairman Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare from 1977 to 1979 and currently chairman and president of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. "A child who reaches age 21 without smoking, abusing alcohol or using illegal drugs is virtually certain never to do so. By failing to continue funding this campaign, the tobacco companies condemn millions of children and teens to premature death and disability."

The commission will demonstrate the commitment of Americans to smoking prevention by gathering at least one million signatures to its petition urging tobacco companies to continue payments to the Public Education Fund under the Master Settlement Agreement. For just one and one-half cents per pack of cigarettes sold in the United States, the tobacco companies can continue funding the truth® campaign at its current $300 million level.

"On behalf of this assembly of national health leaders, I ask all Americans who are sick of smoking enslaving our children before the truth can free them, to sign our petition and send a message to Big Tobacco to put its money where its mouth is. They say they want to end teen smoking. The test is whether they will continue to fund the most effective campaign ever devised to curb youth smoking. We ask caring Americans to join with the nation's health leaders to protect the truth and to send a message to the Big Tobacco executives that it's not their lips we are reading, it's their deeds we are watching," added Mr. Califano.

"I am proud of the progress we have made to keep kids from smoking," said Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., president emeritus of the Morehouse School of Medicine and Secretary of Health and Human Services in the George H.W. Bush Administration. "But I am mindful that I can walk on the street outside most any middle or high school and I will have no trouble finding boys and girls with cigarettes in their backpacks. We must change that. And that is why we have formed this Commission - to save the American Legacy Foundation's truth® campaign - the most effective media campaign to reduce teen smoking."

The commission has established a Web site - www.ProtectTheTruth.org - to help gather the one million petition signatures. Americans need only click on the Web site to join this crusade to help end smoking by children and teens. Joining the commission in this effort and attending today's launch are John R. Seffrin, chief executive officer, American Cancer Society; M. Cass Wheeler, chief executive officer, American Heart Association; John Kirkwood, president and chief executive officer, American Lung Association; Matthew Myers, president, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and William Sorrell, Vermont Attorney General and president elect of the National Association of Attorneys General. Commission members present at the event included former U.S. Secretaries of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan and Margaret Heckler, former Surgeons General Julius B. Richmond and David Satcher who also served as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In addition to the petition, the Web site contains information about the commission, its members and links to truth® advertising spots. Hard copy petitions and Web site address slips can be downloaded from the "Be an Advocate" page, for those interested in helping the commission gather signatures. The commission asks that supporters pass the Web site address on to as many others as possible.

The commission also intends to submit amicus briefs in pending litigation against the tobacco companies to bring to the attention of presiding judges the importance of funding the truth® campaign and to urge these judges to include as a remedy for tobacco company misconduct orders to fund the truth® campaign.

truth® is the largest youth smoking prevention campaign in the country and has helped reduce youth smoking rates. In the two years following the launch of truth®, cigarette smoking among high school students fell from 28 percent to 22.9 percent - a drop of more than one million smokers. The "Monitoring the Future" survey, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and conducted by the University of Michigan, cited the truth® campaign as a factor in the dramatic declines in smoking rates among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders.

After March 2003, the tobacco companies (Phillip Morris (Altria), Brown and Williamson, R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard) were no longer legally required under the Master Settlement Agreement to make annual payments to the Public Education Fund, which enables the American Legacy Foundation to conduct the truth® campaign. The payments are required only if the MSA's original participating tobacco manufacturers and the subsequent participating companies control 99.05% of the cigarette market share. Although participating companies no longer meet that threshold, their share remains above 90 percent.

"In the final analysis, it is entirely likely that the most important thing to come out of the Master Settlement Agreement will prove to be the American Legacy Foundation and its highly effective truth® campaign," said William H. Sorrell, president-elect of the National Association of Attorneys General and the Attorney General of Vermont, who was present at the press conference. "As a nation, we need to preserve this viable, independent and aggressive organization to continue to carry the fight to reduce smoking among young Americans. I join with the bipartisan membership of the Citizens' Commission as they call upon the tobacco companies to financially support the Legacy Foundation in this endeavor."

The truth® media campaign reaches teens through print, radio, the Internet and television, especially youth-oriented outlets. The truth® grassroots initiative gives teens the opportunity to spread the word about Big Tobacco in peer-to-peer settings. The summer grassroots initiative has reached thousands of youth since its inception in 2000. In 2003, truth® crewmembers went on the road for six weeks to bring the truth® to 45 cities in 25 states.

Mr. Califano concluded: "On behalf of the nation's former Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Surgeons General and Directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I say to Big Tobacco executives and CEOs: If your words are not just rhetoric, then fund the truth® campaign. If you really mean what you are saying, then fund the truth® campaign. If your written statements are worth more than the ink they are written with, then fund the truth® campaign. If you truly want to end smoking by children and teens, then fund the truth® campaign."

The Citizens' Commission to Protect the Truth was formed to end smoking by children and teens by encouraging the big tobacco companies - Philip Morris (Altria), Lorillard, R.J. Reynolds, and Brown & Williamson - to continue providing financial support to the Public Education Fund, the financing source for the truth® youth anti-smoking media campaign. For more information on the commission or to sign the petition, visit its Web site at www.ProtectTheTruth.org or send an e-mail to info@ProtectTheTruth.org.

Contacts: Richard Mulieri, Lauren Duran, 212-841-5306, media@protectthetruth.org

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