CancerScam: Diversion of Federal Cancer Funds to Politics [Hardcover]

James T. Bennett (Author), Thomas J. DiLorenzo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1997 | ISBN-10: 1560003340 | ISBN-13: 978-1560003342

For decades, the American Cancer Society (ACS) explicitly forbade acceptance or use of taxpayers' funds from government at any level. However, as public support for programs began to diminish and revenue growth leveled off, the ACS reversed this policy. It now actively seeks taxpayers' funds. In this sense it reflects a model of how America's major health charities are abandoning their traditional goodwill purposes and becoming political organizations. As donors become disenchanted, the charities view the taxpayer as an alternative, and far more reliable, source of funds and devote their political activity to raising taxes and earmarking the increased revenues for themselves. Health charities subsequently lose their independence as the distinction between government and private charities becomes blurred.

CancerScam investigates Project ASSIST, the joint undertaking between the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). CancerScam details the charities' collaborative efforts to divert millions of dollars in federal cancer funds--under the guise of improving the public health through reducing smoking--to build political coalitions. Bennett and DiLorenzo suggest that the antitobacco campaign is a smokescreen for raising taxes on tobacco and earmarking the increased revenues for the financial benefit of ACS and its allied charities. CancerScam reveals how concern about the AIDS lobby's success in obtaining scarce research funds motivated the NCI to build political coalitions at the grass-roots level which could lobby for federal funding of cancer research. Bennett and DiLorenzo believe that public support of the ACS will be undermined when its emphasis on politics becomes better known and its reputation erodes as it is perceived as little more than an extension of government, subject to bureaucratic regulation and loss of independence.  

CancerScam is the follow-up to Bennett and DiLorenzo's Unhealthy Charities: Hazardous to Your Health and Wealth. It is a brave effort that brilliantly shows how government bureaucrats steal funds intended for the highest public purposes and use them for narrow political advancement. As such it will be of interest to those interested in public policy and political science, nonprofit executives, and policymakers.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

According to James T. Bennett and Thomas J. DiLorenzo, authors of Cancerscam, smoking can be good for society, if not for the smoker. Consider all the money the government could save, for instance, on social security if millions of people die young from smoking-related illnesses. Much of Bennett and DiLorenzo's book is taken up with their argument that the government's campaign against smoking is intrusive and unwarranted. They liken smoking to other hazardous choices such as skydiving or skateboarding and point out that there is no national campaign to educate practitioners of these activities. They then launch into an attack on the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, which they accuse of diverting funds into an antismoking program run by a left-wing public interest organization. Cigarette manufacturers and major stockholders in tobacco companies will love this book; those who deal with the medical, social, and personal fall-out from smoking, on the other hand, will find little to agree with here.

Review

The authors indict the American Cancer Society and other voluntary, charitable health associations as "appendages of the Government and paid promoters of an expanded Welfare State." Such shrillness makes the rest of their arguments, even those supported by actual data, all too easy to ignore. -- The New York Times Book Review, Robin Marantz Henig

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 189 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560003340
• ISBN-13: 978-1560003342
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,916,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What the...?, September 6, 2004

By 

E. Husman "ehusman" (Las Cruces, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: CancerScam: Diversion of Federal Cancer Funds to Politics (Hardcover)

I was a little surprised to see what the professional reviewers said about this book, and can only conclude that they reviewed other people's reviews, not the actual book. At no point do the authors claim that smoking is good for smokers, nor is the tone of this book "shrill". They say, "Today, no one seriously claims that smoking or tobacco use in any form is beneficial to health. Indeed, it is almost universally accepted that smoking can be injurious to one's health." Contrary to the claims made by the pro reviewers, the authors noted an interesting shift in the behaviour of several non-profit organizations and set out to document it.

In the 80's, AIDS activists succeeded in diverting federal money out of cancer research and into their pet program. This inspired public health "charities" like the American Cancer Society and its sister organizations, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association, to try lobbying for funds. The most obvious source of funding was cigarette taxes with proceeds earmarked for ACS, ALA, and AHA, but because of open disputes amongst the various groups competing at the public trough in California, ACS decided to try a more low-key and backdoor approach. The answer was the American Stop Smoking Initiative Study (ASSIST), funded by the National Cancer Institute arm of the National Institutes for Health. The ACS guided NCI's grants to several states, and ACS co-administers the programs with the states. ASSIST acts as an umbrella organization for a Potemkin "grass-roots" movement, whose facade is an education program, but whose real goal is to lobby states to (1) increase cigarette taxes, and (2) divvy up the proceeds among ACS and the rest of the groups under the ASSIST umbrella.

Locally, I found out that this was exactly what was happening. The local ASSIST coordinator was careful to never allow himself to be identified as anything but a concerned citizen. A leading state research grant recipient was simultaneously a member of the state board that granted research grants. Once the tobacco settlement was concluded, the money got diverted into such "anti-smoking" programs as park maintenance.

Bennett and DiLorenzo do an admirable job of tracking down the details of the ASSIST sham, from its founding, through its training of members by the Advocacy Institute lobbying foundation, to its hollow shell grass roots movement. This book is a great detective story, and frankly I'm surprised at the reaction of the professional reviewers, who appear to approach the material from the left. Do they not see the obvious parallels to the war on drugs, which the left (in general) opposes (correctly in my opinion)? They appear to have only read and heeded the concluding chapter, where DiLorenzo and Bennett point out that anti-smoking crusader Stanton Glantz suggests that the best response to civil libertarian arguments is "ridicule ... You can also suggest that the person is simply a shill for the tobacco industry." Consider how well it works with regard to the war in Iraq: is any opponent to the war by that fact a shill for Saddam Hussein? Obviously not. Quite so with the Tobacco Wars: opposition to Nanny State interference with personal choice does not necessarily imply that a person is a smoker or on the payroll of a tobacco company.