The TEROC Purge
Cook called an emergency meeting of TEROC for Monday, February 10, 1997, to follow up on Stratton's refusal to share information about the media campaign with TEROC and to decide what action TEROC should take in response. For Cook, as an ACS volunteer, it was hard to have to engage in political fights over the program. ACS had stayed out of the 1992 lawsuit over the media campaign filed by ALA, preferring to try to work things out with the governor. In the 1996 reauthorization fight, ACS had distanced itself from the aggressive strategies used by ANR and AHA. But Cook, as chair of TEROC, realized that the assault on the media campaign had to end. When asked about the changing ACS role, she explained,
It's very hard, very hard. Within the Cancer Society, we have a lot of divisions that are doing tobacco programs and are fighting their legislators and fighting their governors to make sure the money is spent. But we have some that won't do it still. They will not get into the fray that way. They don't understand that. To them, it's just getting into the legal system and they don't think we should be in the legal system. And I think we have become better advocates for the patient and for the prospective patients because we are in the legal system now. We are willing to speak up and say these things just cannot occur.[52]
Cook's strong action in calling the emergency meeting could pose trouble for the administration by attracting public attention and energizing the ACS and other health groups, even though eight of TEROC's thirteen members are appointed by the governor (two are appointed by the
On the Friday before the TEROC meeting, Stratton announced a major shakeup of TEROC. Three physicians on TEROC who had been strong advocates for the anti-tobacco education campaign were replaced with individuals closely allied with the Wilson administration. Breslow and Dr. Reed Tuckson, president of Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, were told that they had been replaced in an action allegedly taken three months earlier by Speaker Pringle, a Republican, the day before the Democrats took over the Assembly. Neither Pringle nor DHS had given any previous indication of these changes, even though TEROC had met in December, after the date on which Pringle supposedly made the appointments; and the associated paperwork had ostensibly been “lost.”[53] In addition, the governor removed Paul Torrens, a professor of public health at UCLA who had been another outspoken advocate for a strong program.
In the physicians' places, Pringle had allegedly appointed Hal Massey, a retired Rockwell Executive who had been active in ACS, and Doug Cavanaugh, the president of Ruby's Restaurants, an opponent of smoke-free restaurants and bars who was, according to Pringle, “familiar with the tobacco debate, balancing regulations with people's right to smoke.”[53] Wilson replaced Torrens with Dr. George Rutherford, who had been the state health officer in the Wilson administration and responsible for the Proposition 99 program until he left to join the faculty at the University of California. Wilson also appointed Stratton to TEROC, making him a member of his own oversight committee.
The TEROC purge, combined with a dismantled media campaign, made news.[53-59] Well over a hundred people came to the TEROC meeting on the afternoon of February 10, compared with the ten to fifteen nonmembers who usually attended. Audience members included the heads of a number of county tobacco use prevention programs who emphasized the key role the media campaign played in their efforts. Without the “air cover” created by the media, the impact of their local programs was more limited. Steve Hansen, a member of the board of the California Medical Association, suggested Stratton was guilty of “public health malpractice.”[39]
TEROC eventually agreed that Cook should write to Belshé, informing her of the committee's unanimous vote (even including Stratton's) to request a meeting to review the storyboards for the current and future media spots; Belshé rebuffed the request.[37][60]