A Question Of Intent
A Great American Battle With A Deadly Industry
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Tobacco companies had been protecting their turf for decades. They had congressmen in their pocket. They had corrupt scientists who made excuses about nicotine, cancer and addiction. They had hordes of lawyers to threaten anyone -- inside the industry or out -- who posed a problem. They had a whole lot of money to spend. And they were good at getting people to do what they wanted them to do. After all, they had already convinced millions of Americans to take up an addictive, unhealthy, and potentially deadly habit.
David Kessler didn't care about all that. In this book he tells for the first time the thrilling detective story of how the underdog FDA -- while safeguarding the nation's food, drugs, and blood supply -- finally decided to take on one of the world's most powerful opponents, and how it won. Like A Civil Action or And the Band Played On, A Question of Intent weaves together science, law, and fascinating characters to tell an important and often unexpectedly moving story. We follow Kessler's team of investigators as they race to find the clues that will allow the FDA to assert jurisdiction over cigarettes, while the tobacco companies and their lawyers fight back -- hard. Full of insider information and drama, told with wit, and animated by its author's moral passion, A Question of Intent reads like a Grisham thriller, with one exception -- everything in it is true.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"My understanding of the industry's power finally forced me to see that... the solution to the smoking problem rests with the bottom line, prohibiting the tobacco companies from continuing to reap profits from the sale of a deadly addictive drug.... " These strong words from Kessler, now dean of the Yale University School of Medicine and commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 1990 to 1997, testify to his commitment to regulating tobacco, as well as to the frustration involved in taking on the powerful tobacco industry. In understated, lucid language, he details how his interest in smoking as a public health issue grew into a full-scale investigation into the practices of the tobacco industry. Drawing on legal and scientific research and the notes he kept during his terms as commissioner, Kessler documents how the team he assembled built a case that implicated the industry in nicotine manipulation that increased the addictiveness of cigarettes. With the assistance of informants like Jeffrey Wigand, a former Brown and Williamson researcher and subject of the film The Insider, the team learned about genetically altered plants created to produce higher nicotine levels. Kessler indicts the tobacco industry for lying to Congress and the public about these activities, denying the strong relationship between smoking and lung cancer and launching ad campaigns to encourage smoking, particularly among children. With the backing of Vice-President Al Gore, the FDA issued regulations to curb smoking that were eventually overturned by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in early 2000. This is an important study of the influence of big tobacco and the high cost to the public health of the nation that smoking has caused.
