SAN FRANCISCO, May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Legacy Foundation® and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) will unveil a permanent exhibit wall called "The Cigarette Papers" at a ribbon cutting ceremony today at the UCSF Center for Toba

The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL), also housed at UCSF, contains more than 36 million pages of tobacco industry documents related to the advertising, manufacturing, marketing and sales of, and scientific research on, tobacco products. The LTDL was made possible by a $15 million endowment and grant for research from the American Legacy Foundation in 2001. "It gives me great pleasure to stand by my colleagues in the tobacco control community and unveil The Cigarette Papers wall, which is both dramatic in its design, and dramatic in its contents," said Dr. Cheryl Healton, president and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation. "We at the American Legacy Foundation are committed to providing access to tobacco industry documents to both scholars and the general public. Through our gift to the University of California, San Francisco, we are ensuring that current and future generations will have the opportunity to explore the documents and judge for themselves how the tobacco industry has conducted its business." Dr. Healton also announced the creation of two Tobacco Industry Documents Awards, to be awarded annually by the American Legacy Foundation. The first is named in honor of the foundation's first Chair, The Honorable Christine Gregoire, Attorney General of the State of Washington, who played an important role in crafting the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the 46 states and attorneys general and the tobacco industry. The second award will be named in memory of General Gregoire's mother, Sybil G. Jacobs, who succumbed at the age of 81 to emphysema after decades of smoking. Annually, more than 440,000 Americans die from tobacco-related disease, which makes smoking the number one cause of preventable death in the United States. "The announcement of these awards could not be more timely," said General Gregoire. "In celebration of Mother's Day yesterday, it is heartwarming that the foundation made the decision to name these awards in memory of my mother and in honor of me. We were very close, and there is no doubt that her death played a motivating role in my work to reduce the toll of tobacco-related disease and death in this country. This award is a meaningful legacy for her and I'm grateful to the foundation for this wonderful gesture," she said. The American Legacy Foundation endowment established permanent Internet access to tobacco-related documents and provided funds to develop a center for scholarly study of the material. The Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education was created as a dedicated venue for tobacco documents and other related research, education and training for UCSF students and faculty and for the public health community. The majority of these documents were made available due to litigation by the Attorneys General. The LTDL provides a permanent home for the tobacco documents, offering free and confidential access to the collection - visitors can search, view, and download the documents at any time day or night. New documents are added periodically as they are collected from industry sites. The Library also serves as a repository for studies and reports funded by the American Legacy Foundation. "On behalf of the University, I would like to thank the American Legacy Foundation for providing us with the funding to make the Library a reality. It is an honor to host these important documents that will contribute to building a lasting legacy in tobacco control," said Dr. Michael Bishop, University Chancellor.

<< Prev	CIGoutlet.NET News Home	Next >>