A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle with a Deadly Industry

by David A. Kessler

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1891620800
• ISBN13: 9781891620805
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 485 Pages
• Weight: 2.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Civics lesson that reads like a thriller

Wow. Who would have thought a book on the history of the FDA's handling of tobacco regulation would read like a spy novel? I grabbed this book off the new books shelf at the library, and picked it up expecting to skim through it. Kessler begins with how he was chosen to head the FDA, and introduces several of his staff including the one who started him toward taking on the tobacco industry. Then we get plenty of background including the history, marketing, and laws concerning tobacco.With all the press on Big Tobacco, I expected them to be shown as fiendish. I've been a member of Americans for Non-Smokers Rights for 20 years, and I've read all about the Industry's dirty tricks, and I fully expected to read about them again here. What I didn't expect to find was the thoroughness in Big Tobacco attempted to discredit the FDA, and Kessler takes us through the political campaigns and counter-campaigns. He shows how Big Tobacco created fake advocacy groups on several issues, leading to their attempt to muzzle the FDA and cut off all their government funding. If you remember the '94 Contract with America and the movement against Big Government, you'll be surprised to find how Big Tobacco co-opted it to fight the FDA, one of the more admired agencies. If you weren't already cynical about how the US government operates, this book will get you there, even with its descriptions of some of the good guys continually outmaneuvered by the bad ones. Several congress members are shown to be captives of Big Tobacco, doing their dirty work with scripts written by their lobbyists and lawyers.And speaking of lawyers, one of the most amazing revelations to me ok is how the tobacco industry became captives of their law firms! Yes, instead of working for their clients, the law firms ended up calling all the shots, and the CEOs would read statements prepared by them. The book covers how this came to be.If you love looking of source material, you'll be busy. Kessler leaves plenty of footnotes in this meaty book for your review. My only complaint is that the book jumps around in places, as the story moves forward or back depending on the topic being covered. But this is a small beef, as the material is so compelling. Find out not only how cigarette's nicotine content was manipulated but how the industry tried to hide this obvious fact from FDA visitors to their manufacturing facilities. Enjoy the victories and despair over the setbacks; this is a policy-wonk's book as written by a Tom Clancy wanna-be.

A good read or a good book for one interested in policy....

It's funny that when I purchased this book, I never really suspected that it would be quite the page-turner that it is. In this book, David Kessler (former head of the FDA) speaks first of his agency's enlightenment that it COULD and SHOULD fight Big Tobacco and then of the fight itself. This is gripping and compelling a story that public policy has to offer: it's hard to remember that ten years ago, the tobacco industry still held that nicotine a)was not addictive and b)did not cause cancer; this book shows how these myths were finally put to bed in the public sphere. Second, this is a neat story. Kessler has much more of a knack for putting words down on a page than one would expect for a medical doctor (perhaps his wife, whom he declares was a fan of Anthony Trollope, rubbed off on him!) He puts together a story that is worthy of John Grisham; seeing that Erin Brockovich became one of the big pictures of the past twelve months, this fella might have something going for himself here....Setting all of these aside, this book has something to offer for people interested in how the American political system works. In much the same way as books like 'Boomerang!' chronicled the downfall of the centrally-funded health care system also circa the early Clinton-era, this book deals with one of the great succeses (or a part thereof) of the same period. This is a great read and entirely worth buying in hardcover.... Please buy this book....

An Eye-Opening and Lively Read

I've always been a little suspicious of the anti-tobacco crowd -- it seemed a bit Puritanical, a bit holier-than-thou -- so I admit to approaching A Question of Intent with a chip on my shoulder. By the time I had raced through this book -- which literally kept me reading through the night -- my view had changed dramatically. Like many Americans, I had bought into the myths created by the tobacco industry to protect its own vast profits. My perspective had been almost painfully naïve. There's nothing inherently glamorous about holding a smoking stick, but the industry's aggressive and long-lasting public relations campaigns have somehow convinced us that there is. The argument that people smoke of their own free will is unsupportable when the industry works to addict the nation's children, but we've allowed rhetoric to persuade us otherwise. The FDA's efforts to bring this industry into line through commonsense regulations that carefully avoid the taint of Prohibition are chronicled here, with the author revealing a deft touch for detail, a strategic mind worthy of Bismarck, and no small degree of humor. And the decision by the Supreme Court to undercut Kessler's effort (the same five judges who voted to defeat the FDA's tobacco initiative also made that dead-of-night decision to cheat Al Gore of a fair election count) will surely go down in the history books as a great opportunity squandered. Rather than showing the courage to change public health forever, the Court chose to bolster the profit margins of an industrial killer. That's something we should all remember next time we go to the polls.

Storytelling at its best -- about something that matters

A great read, one of those books that justly deserves to be called a page-turner. If any doubt remained about the character of the tobacco industry and the damage it inflicts, A Question of Intent lays it to rest. Funding volunteer firefighters who then make public statements downplaying the risk of cigarettes as a source of fire? Adding chocolate to tobacco because when burned it gives off a chemical that may make it easier to inhale? Identifying Islamic religious leaders who oppose an interpretation of the Qur'an that would lead to a ban on tobacco use? Who knew?But this is no predictable polemic, far from it. It's more like a detective story, with shrouded informants, driven investigators, and the pursuit of long-shot leads and buried clues. David Kessler comes across as agile, self-effacing, and very smart, with a surprisingly ironic sense of humor. A Question of Intent is about more than tobacco. It is also about the education of a political neophyte and an insider's look at Washington -- that messy, unseemly place where someone with vision, commitment and wiles can still make a difference.

Even In Government People Make The Difference

This is a wonderful book that should appeal to tobacco warriors and the general public alike. It reads like a novel, yet its copiously documented throughout.. It will be equally at home on your coffee table and as required reading in graduate schools of public poicy. Whether you agree with what David Kessler did or you don't, the message here goes far beyond tobacco. At a time when there is a feeling that government no longer matters, this book shows how a small group of people,in one government agency,led by a leader who believed deeply in the law and his cause, can make a difference.. That Kessler's tobacco war ended in defeat with a 5 to 4 vote in the Supreme Court provides an eery parallell to recent events. But no one felt good about the election mess in Florida. Most Americans, liberal or concervative, will feel pretty good when they finish this book. It shows that leadership can still make a difference and that our government can still matter.