Donna E. Shalala

Donna E. Shalala is the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In the following viewpoint, she argues that teenage smoking is a growing and critical problem that needs to be tackled with government actions and community assistance. Shalala advocates restrictions on advertising so that parents, not tobacco companies, will be the ones to educate children about smoking. This viewpoint is taken from a speech given by Shalala on May 29, 1996, at the National Tobacco Control Conference in Chicago. Some of the proposals mentioned in the viewpoint, such as restrictions on tobacco advertising, were later included in a settlement reached between the tobacco industry and the attorneys general of forty states. As of this writing, the terms of the settlement had not...