Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 04:27:44 -0400 (EDT) From: [E--rS--r] at [aol.com] To: Multiple recipients of list <[n--b--n] at [mainstream.net]> Subject: Your enemy: California Wellness Foundation/Health Net Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research (DIPR) has focused on how public money -- _your_ money -- has been used to subvert your inherent, irrevocable rights through the use of politicized "science." Virtually every level of government uses your tax money to propagandize restrictive gun laws and other fundamental tenets of authoritarian control, of collectivism, of socialism (sometimes eumphemistically "liberalism"). Increasingly it has become apparent to us that consumers' money -- _your_ money -- has also been used to subvert your inherent, irrevocable rights. Your health care dollars, whether being paid directly by you or indirectly by you through your employer or union, are being funneled into health care insurance companies that are increasingly funding "non-profit educational foundations" that propagandize for the end of our constitutional republic. Currently, with resources approaching $1 BILLION, California Wellness Foundation is the deepest of these "pockets," but increasing numbers of health insurance companies are becoming so involved. [We expect to report on the activities of Kaiser Foundation/Permanente Medical Group in the future]. Ms. Sarah Foster conducted an extensive investigation of California Wellness Foundation and has written the following article. If you read this article and are angered or frightened by the activities of California Wellness Foundation, recall that Health Net fathered this bastard child. If you have Health Net insurance coverage, let your views be known -- to your insurance agent, your employer, your union, _and_ the executives of Health Net and California Wellness Foundation. Do not let your money be used against you and your family for generations to come. Let your legislators know that, despite its pleasing sounding name and mission, California Wellness Foundation is an enemy of our rights and of our constitutional republic. Ms. Foster's report refers to issues other than gun bans in which California Wellness Foundation is active. Please distribute her report to people, organizations, and newsgroups with interest in those other issues. Please support Capital Research Center that has made this and other important reports available. Edgar A. Suter MD National Chair, Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research ******************************************** Organization Trends New Health Foundation Writes Prescription for Big Government California Group Advances Liberalism in the Name of Wellness The author, Sarah Foster, is a researcher and writer residing in Sacramento, California. Editor Robert V. Pambianco Publisher Terrence Scanlon Copyright 1996 Capital Research Center 727 15th Street NW/Suite 800 Washington, DC 20005 (202)393-2600 Permission to distribute granted providing full attribution is given. Liberals no longer call themselves liberals: they prefer to be known as "moderates." Now a recently established California foundation has come Up with a fresh way to market discredited liberal ideas of munificent government. The California Wellness Foundation (CWF) is using the expansive concept of "wellness" to advance a broad-based policy agenda that is hostile to individual liberty and responsibility. Created by the privatization of a major nonprofit Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), the foundation is emerging as a grantmaking behemoth. With a multi-million dollar budget and nearly a billion dollars in assets, it has already become a major player in the nation's largest state CWF has taken on a cornucopia of concerns: gun ownership. smoking, consumption of alcoholic beverages, teenage pregnancy, to name a few. In FY 1994-95 CWF awarded 129 grants totaling nearly $40 million to institutions. organizations and individuals to tackle these and other issues that constitute what CWF has defined as "prevention" and "wellness." Wellness is the latest buzz-phrase among hip grantmakers Sufficiently vague, this all- encompassing term appeals to foundation professionals who believe that specific missions and mandates hinder their creative grantmaking talents. Like the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution, wellness provides the imaginative foundation officer with limitless possibilities. CWF's stated goal is "to improve the health of the residents of California" and "foster healthful lifestyles, behaviors, and values.'` To CWF, health or illness is defined not as the absence or presence of disease. "but by a complex web of conditions in [the] physical and social environment," and CWF' has determined its grantmaking must address 'the multiple barriers to healthful living-from personal behavior to social and economic influences such as poverty, unemployment, inadequate schools and racism." In other words, wellness means whatever CWF wants it to mean. Sound familiar? Such a program is simply an updated version of the root-causes rationale used to justify the 1960s War on Poverty. Grants are awarded in five program areas: Community Health: Population Health; Worksite Health Improvement; Violence Prevention: and Teenage Pregnancy and Birth Prevention. Each of thesFrom listown Mon Sep 2 04:11:31 1996 Received: (from [w--o] at [localhost]) by fs1.mainstream.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) id EAA10223; Mon, 2 Sep 1996 04:11:31 -0400 (EDT) From: [E--rS--r] at [aol.com] X-Authentication-Warning: fs1.mainstream.net: who set sender to <[E--rS--r] at [aol.com]> using -f Received: from emout16.mx.aol.com(198.81.11.42) by fs1.mainstream.net via smap (V1.3) id sma010218; Mon Sep 2 04:10:46 1996 Received: by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA23873; Mon, 2 Sep 1996 04:02:51 -0400 Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 04:02:51 -0400 Message-ID: <[960902040250 192515542] at [emout16.mail.aol.com]> To: [firearms alert] at [lists1.best.com], [e--en--n] at [polaristel.net], [d--n] at [safari.net], [i--ap--o] at [xnet.com], [G--l--r] at [aol.com], [p--at--r] at [micron.net], [p--r--t] at [rtd.com], [right 2 arms] at [pobox.com], [n v rgivup] at [vnet.net], [firearms politics] at [cup.hp.com], [texas gun owners] at [zilker.net], [D R GOT W W] at [aol.com], [C h ristieH] at [aol.com], [s--a--y] at [netcom.com], [74157 632] at [compuserve.com], [larry pratt] at [prn-bbs.org], [H--a--l] at [aol.com], [104315 3174] at [compuserve.com], [sberg 1] at [niu.edu], [F--EA--S] at [utarlvm1.uta.edu], [pa rkba] at [netaxs.com], [w--c] at [chc.wa.com], [B--BJ--Y] at [delphi.com], [n--b--n] at [fs1.mainstream.com] (nobanlist), [m d rkba] at [cs.umd.edu], [p h b] at [ix.netcom.com], [102062 2510] at [compuserve.com], [s--e--l] at [usa.net], [H--A] at [sassette.uncp.edu], [D D PLAF] at [nuls.law.nwu.edu], [p--t--o] at [cs.umd.edu], [h--s] at [unity.ncsu.edu], [r--h--r] at [intele.net], [v--n] at [terminus.intermind.net], [bill champ] at [claris.com], [c d n firearms] at [skatter.usask.ca], [HeatW 27] at [aol.com], [MarkB 17] at [aol.com], [l--oa--l] at [icsi.net], [B--TT--L] at [main.nlc.gwu.edu], [c--v--y] at [andrew.cmu.edu], [w--t] at [cs.utexas.edu], [v--nn--l] at [ids2.idsonline.com], [70274 1222] at [compuserve.com], [C J SV 80 A] at [prodigy.com], [Stephen Lew] at [wellsfargo.com], [b--r--y] at [oes.amdahl.com], [n--b--t] at [community.net], [R--NO--S] at [libra.law.utk.edu], [r--k--s] at [tiac.net], [Brooke Roberts] at [craig.senate.gov], [t--g] at [homer.cs.berkeley.edu], [etw 2] at [columbia.edu], [B--k--k] at [aol.com], [j--ls--n] at [seq.hamline.edu], [c k nox] at [crl.com], [G--SS--J] at [mhv.net], [r--n] at [oandtsvt.nbc.ge.com], [D--V--D] at [azcc.arizona.edu], [r--h--r] at [aros.net], [f--em--t] at [coil.com], [E--On--v] at [aol.com], [l--er--t] at [dartmouth.edu], [M--K--Y] at [gnv.ifas.ufl.edu], [t--i] at [crl.com], [l--e--l] at [ez0.ezlink.com], [w--e--e] at [usa.pipeline.com], [B--el--s] at [aol.com], [Richard F Hansen] at [ci.eugene.or.us], [k--st--a] at [sfnet.com], [70277 2502] at [compuserve.com] (gunnutesq'slist), [71604 2776] at [compuserve.com], [71620 2064] at [compuserve.com], [74671 55] at [compuserve.com], [a--m--n] at [nifs.org] (charleseichhorn), [c--st--a] at [netcom.com], [c--ra--o] at [gramercy.ios.com], [David A Benner LAX 1 B] at [xerox.com], [d--r--o] at [ix.netcom.com], [G--NI--W] at [aol.com], [G--tB--t] at [aol.com], [i--s--w] at [ix.netcom.com], [j--e--l] at [genie.geis.com], [l--nd--t] at [iquest.net], [m--a--n] at [mediafax.com], [Potent 357] at [aol.com], [r--b--i] at [pgh.nauticom.net], [R k baesq] at [aol.com], [r--c] at [xmission.com], [silber g d] at [npvm.newpaltz.edu], [B--K--R] at [vax2.concordia.ca] (--h.taylorbuckner), [72662 1067] at [compuserve.com] (amybern) Subject: Your enemy: California Wellness Foundation/Health Net 2/2 The obsession with guns explains CWF's mission completely, and it also says a great deal about modern-day liberalism. CWF and politicians like President Clinton focus on issues like gun control and cigarettes because they do not have the answers to the broader problems afflicting society. Thirty years ago, liberals thought they had the answer: massive government spending and regulation. But that didn't work; as the president said in his State of the Union Address earlier this year, 'the era of trig government is over." Intellectually exhausted and unable to win popular support for big new statist schemes, those seeking to score political points have found that guns and tobacco companies provide easy targets. It is no surprise that the president has tried to make so much of his opponent's assertion that cigarettes are not necessarily addictive for everyone. Likewise, CWF and other foundation have no solutions to the social issues confounding America. So they rail against guns and cigarettes. The Teenage Pregnancy and Birth Prevention Initiative While the lion's share of CWF activity to date has focused on the gun "epidemic," it appears that the foundation has even bigger plans for its teenage pregnancy initiativethat is if money allocation is any indication of intent. Until this year the Initiative received comparatively little funding but that has suddenly changed. CWF plans to award .860 million over ten years. Only two grants were listed in the 1995 annual report, though they were sizable: * $570,000 to the California Public Health Foundation to support the organizing and implementation of planning and advisory groups meetings. * $3.5 million to the Public Media Center "to design and implement the first phase of a public education campaign." More recently, the April 18 Chronicle of Philanthropy listed nine newly awarded grants totaling $6.14 million for this Initiative. Of that, $5 million is to be paid over four years to the California Family Planning Council based in Los Angeles, "to implement a clinical-services and prevention model I or pregnant teenagers at family planning organizations in high-risk areas." Also listed in the Chronicle as a spectral grant on Reproductive Health and not as part of the Initiative, is $50,000 to the Washington- based National Advisory Board 011 Ethics in Reproduction for "administrative support and . . . ethical review and analysis of reproductive-policy issues." The VPI is a cover for promoting public acceptance of gun-control. Is the teenage pregnancy initiative just camouflage for pushing abortion as a public health measure'? While the word abortion is never mentioned in CWF literature, the original title-"Teenage Pregnancy and Birth Prevention Initiative"- presents unclear euphemisms that make one wonder what the program envisions. The 1994 annual report admits part of the program will include finding out what has been learned about preventing pregnancies and births among teenagers." Sex education and family planning. we're told, "are not enough" (emphasis in original). CWF seems to be planning programs far beyond condom distribution and birth control pills. The rationale for doing something. anything, about teenage pregnancy is presented in terms sure to appeal to overburdened taxpayers. Most teenage girls who have babies are poor and go on welfare, and they and their children are caught in a descending spiral of poverty and welfare dependence which costs tax dollars. Perhaps it's just an oversight, but CWF does not seem at all concerned about illegitimacy and focuses attention on teenage pregnancy per se- which could include young married couples. That is, as CWF presents the issue, the problem is not so much girls having babies out of wedlock, but girls having babies. One can appreciate concern about welfare and other costs to the taxpayer. But is there another, more pressing consideration? A lull- term birth in a hospital runs anywhere from $2,000 to over $5,000-plus prenatal and post-delivery care. However, an elective abortion costs only a couple of hundred dollars. Health Net, CWF's parent, is in stiff competition with other HMOs for MediCal (California's Medicaid program) contracts. Under capitation, the government pays an HMO so much per member. The more MediCal members are assigned to it, is it more cost efficient to "educate" teenagers and their families to agree to abortion when there's an "unplanned" pregnancy, rather than giving birth, keeping the child or placing it for adoption'? A cynical observation'? Perhaps. But Health Net has the reputation among health care professionals as being the most cost-conscious of all the HMOs. And one of the biggest criticisms of managed care in general is that too much attention is paid to costs at the expense of care. A Tragic Allocation of Funds With its vast resources and connection to a major HMO, CWF could do truly wonderful things in the field of biomedical research. In a January 22 article, Time detailed how HMOs are swelling their coffers through increased memberships, only to renege when IL comes to paying for expected medical care. Time reported several cases of women being denied hone-marrow transplant therapy for breast cancer-a last-ditch, though not extraordinary procedure which might have saved their lives, or at least relieved their suffering. Time explained that Health Net won't cover any treatment it deems experimental or investigative, and considers bone marrow transplants such, yet like other HMOs, "it spends nothing on research to hunt for new treatments for disease.. .[I]t feels bound by law and competition to avoid such research." According to Time, Health Net recently rejected a proposal to allocate money to research ovarian cancer, fearing that under the Americans with Disabilities Act the company would be held liable for discrimination against people with other forms of cancer and other diseases. But if an HMO itself can't or won't pay for research, would it not be a true benefit to humanity for its foundation to do so'' Rather than orchestrating propaganda campaigns against unapproved behaviors and attempting to strip us of our right to self-defense, why doesn't CWF underwrite the research necessary to discover the cause and cure of cancer, AIDS, stroke, and other diseases to which humans are prone? The tendency of foundations such as the California Wellness Foundation to support strategies for social and political control on individual behavior in the name of "prevention" is one of the oddities of contemporary liberalism - Once defenders of individual freedom, they have become prim overseers of personal deportment. e creates a theater of operation for government intervention. CWF's first project, the Violence Prevention Initiative, is fully developed and being expanded. The ominous-sounding Teenage Pregnancy and Birth Prevention Initiative is still in the formative state. Although a grantmaking foundation obligated to foster a public charitable interest, CWF is a recent offspring of a commercial enterprise. CWF's "parent" is Health Net, the second largest health maintenance organization (HMO) in California, with 1.3 million commercial and Medicare HMO members, many of them subscribers with CalPERS (the state Public Employees Retirement System). CWF benefits from the considerable cachet associated with its parent's former status as a nonprofit insurer. In 1990 the previously nonprofit Health Net became a for-profit corporation. Because California law requires nonprofits that privatize to leave their assets in the non- profit sector, Health Net created CWF in 1991, funding it in 1992 to the tune of $300 million ($75 million cash, $225 million in a long term, interest-bearing note), plus 25.7 million shares of Class B nonvoting stock, which convert to Class A voting shares when sold. ILs most recent Annual Report (1995) posts assets of $851.8 million. In January 1994. Health NcL merged with QualMed. a Colorado-based HMO, to form Health Systems International, which has been actively acquiring smaller HMOs. mostly in the Northeast. Health Net-today a subsidiary of HSI-is actively pursuing the Medicare and small-group market, moves that have interesting implications for CWF and its work. As a new foundation, CWF's Board of Directors (then headed by Roger Greaves, founder, president and CEO of Health Net) was free to set priorities "unencumbered by past funding commitments" (as the 1993 annual report put it) or, for that matter, unencumbered by earlier ideological baggage. Unlike such organizations as the Pew Charitable Trusts or the Ford Foundation, which had left-wing agendas thrust upon them, CWF has been "progressive" from the start. Education for Regulation CWF's central organizing concept is "prevention." In today's political lexicon, that means far more than immunization programs for kids, X-ray screening for TB or breast cancer, or providing physical exams and dental work for the poor. The new "prevention" includes these, but also much more: it aims for total elimination of "risk behaviors" and anything "bad" in that "complex web of conditions." A report funded by CWF- for the Washington-based Partnership for Prevention (of which Health Net is a member) puts it this way: "Imagine a new drug that would cure an epidemic... a new surgery that would correct . . . heart disease... a new prenatal therapy that would help over 100,000 low-birth- weight babies survive.... Let's go one step further. Imagine a way to prevent the epidemic; to prevent the heart disease: to prevent the low birth weight" (emphasis in original text). Desirable as that may sound, full realization of such goals would require constant government intervention in people's lives, with every behavior added to the lists of targets for modification. CWF gives few details on how this is to be accomplished. What is clear, however, is that CWF's prevention paradigm is a model for a major expansion of the nanny state. CWF is not a membership organization. and as a nonprofit with an IRS 501(c)(3) status it is not permitted to lobby on specific legislation. But it does engage in "effecting policy change through public education." In practice, this means convincing the public to accept and demand the laws, ordinances, and regulations CWF believes are necessary for public health and "wellness." Like other foundations, CWF is a money machine; it funnels grants to community- based nonprofits and individuals eager to make demands for government action, and sponsors university research to bolster "progressive" policy initiatives. But more importantly, CWF is a modern, high-tech foundation that recognizes the value of getting out the message-especially in California, a big state with expensive media- driven politics and a tradition of creating policy by means of ballot initiative. Thus, CWF recruits experienced consulting firms that develop and implement campaigns even to the point of serious involvement in state ballot measures and national legislation. Examples listed in the 1995 annual report include: * $500,000 to Public Media Center "to support a public education project on health impacts of proposed federal budget cuts on children and families in California." "The campaign joined advocates from a wide range of organizations, bringing a unified voice to the debate." Public Media Center is a nonprofit, public interest advertising firm based in San Francisco, which-as the Wall Street Journal/ puts it "Goes for l the I Jugular to Push Causes." The 20-year-old PMC places more than $1 million in newspaper ads a year in major papers on behalf of clients such as Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club, and Handgun Control Inc., according to the Journal. Last year, it placed fear-inducing ads opposing the Contract With America. The Contract "guarantees drastic losses for children," warned one such hyperbolic ad. which delineated a parade of horribles that would plague the nation if the Republican agenda were enacted, e.g., "neglected and brutalized children will not be protected. ' * $363,000 to the Marin Institute, "to build the capacity of live target California cities to effectively address the role of alcohol marketing and availability in the economic development of these communities." This nonprofit research firm in the North San Francisco Bay Area is hostile to both tobacco and alcohol consumption, and explores ways of "empowering" local communities to restrict access to them through ordinances limiting or banning advertising, sales, and consumption. The Institute grew out of the famous Buck Trust controversy and was established with funds from the Trust. * $4 million to Public Media Center "to develop and implement a campaign to increase [public] awareness about... Proposition 188." This was a 1994 California ballot initiative, sponsored by tobacco companies. that sought to curb the ability of local communities to enact anti-smoking ordinances that were more stringent than slate law. PMC "used print, radio and television ads to inform Californians about the threat to the public's health." CWF reports that surveys at the start showed Californians in support of the proposition. After the emotionally charged propaganda blitz by PMC, voters rejected it ( 1995 annual report). Currying Favor with the State? Organization Trends has previously documented how foundations establish a financial relationship with state and local governments as a shortcut to achieving their policy goals, e.g., a new health care plan or education reform. Often these programs have little public support-hence, lawmakers are unlikely to provide funding-so the foundation gives the state money to run a pilot program. The state legislators are often hardly aware that state agencies are relying on outside grantmakers for policy direction. Yet the program becomes entrenched. Eventually the government takes over the funding -and the public gets stuck with something it never wanted. It's an easy way to avoid the sticky problems associated with democratic self government. Like other large philanthropies. CWF gives money to selected government institutions and agencies, local and state, for start-up costs of scholarships, fellowships? and research projects. Some examples: * $775,000 to UC Berkeley in 1995 to support the Schools Wellness Project, "a...model aimed at transforming 11 K-12 Bay Area schools into centers of community health promotion." * $30,000 to the L.A. Unified School District in 1995 "to create a program to identify, track, and assist pregnant teens." * $15,()()(:) to UC Berkeley, School of Public Health, in 1994 "to conduct research on the politics of prevention in health care reform and to assess the influence of the work supported by [CWF]." Commenting on this connection to government, former CWF president and CEO Howard Kahn wrote: "Recognizing the central role of government in the lives of all Californians, we have not shied away from involvement with government and public policy issues. Instead. we have embraced opportunities to affect public policy and leverage public funds." (Leverage is the key word; the foundation provides $100, and soon the government is spending $10 million on a statewide prevention program.) This means, Kahn explained, "evaluation of government-sponsored social and health service programs," and "partnering" with government "to attempt to influence the shape of new or existing public programs" and to ensure that "prevention assumes a central role . . . in . . . efforts [of health care reform| within California." To those who would raise an eyebrow over a possible conflict of interest between a foundation established by a major HMO that is aggressively pursuing Medicare and other government contracts et the same time that it gives money to government agencies and attempts to "influence . . . public health programs": Be advised that such activity is not only condoned, it's applauded as a fine example of "partnering." The Violence Prevention Initiative Although millions of dollars have been awarded for projects in all five program areas (cited above), CWF's top priority has been the Violence Prevention Initiative (VPI). In just four short years CWF has positioned itself in the vanguard of the gun control crusade. IL has committed $30 million to this project, with other foundations kicking in an additional $10 million. Basically this is a gun-control campaign. It has drawn nationwide public attention and has endeared the fledgling foundation to a sympathetic media. Consistent with its organizing principles, CWF claims to have been the first organization to make gun control a public health issue. "The Initiative breaks with tradition by putting the issue . . . in a public health perspective that centers on prevention." says CWF literature. Yes, prevention. What good is it, asks CWF, for a man to receive a clean bill of health at the local clinic, if he is killed by gunshot on his way home'? The solution)' Get rid of firearms. After all, if a public health department can order the capping of a contaminated water source to stem cholera or order restaurants to stop selling tainted hamburgers, it can surely halt an "epidemic" of gun-related in juries and deaths. Not surprisingly, many challenge this view. Edgar Suter, M.D., of Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research, a nonprofit organization in San Ramon, Calif., has analyzed such allegations. In a report titled Targeting Deceit, Suter observes that "The chief strategists of the gun ban lobby have attempted to reframe the debate as a 'public health' issue rather than a crime issue precisely because they have recognized . . . that two decades of criminological research has shown the bankruptcy of the claim that gun control reduces crime or violence." By using FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics, Suter points out that drug dealers and drug users are "overwhelmingly and disproportionately the perpetrators and victims of violence....[F]ar from being 'innocent children,' an alarming two-thirds of gun homicides are of teens and young adults in the drug trade." Such facts make little if any impression on the anti-gun advocates, and they are confident of ultimate success. "This is the beginning of a long journey," Dr. Michael Rodriguez, Research Director of the CWF-funded Pacific Center for Violence Prevention, told a Sacramento anti-gun group last June. As reported by the Sacramento Bee Rodriguez warned his audience that they would face "i formidable obstacles, much like the pioneers of the anti-smoking crusade." "Twenty years ago, people were able to light up wherever they wanted," Rodriguez is quoted as saying. Indeed. And CWF is determined that just as the public was eventually conditioned to demand local ordinances and state laws to ban smoking in restaurants, work sites, and government buildings, "education" by CWF will provide the changes in public opinion and policy that will cause citizens to surrender their guns. Here's how some of CWF's grant money is being spent on its anti-gun initiatives. * $650,000 every other year to fund two- year fellowships for ten community activists scattered throughout the state. Also three annual $25,000 "Peace Awards" to selected community leaders. * $400,000 each to 17 community organizations "to implement violence prevention projects." * $200,000 to the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco to produce and distribute a national televised documentary on the firearms industry. * $40,000 to the San Francisco-based Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV) for a resource manual, Addressing GUn Violence e through Local Ordinances a how-to book for anti-gun activists and attorneys. It explains how to enact municipal ordinances that outlaw "Saturday night specials" and banish dealers from residential and other "sensitive" areas. It offers advice on how activists can build public support for so-called "rational gun regulation," and how to resist legal challenges to already enacted anti-gun ordinances and regulations. In 1992 a major grant of $1.3 million (part of an eventual total of $7.5 million) was allocated to establish Rodriguez's Pacific Center for Violence Prevention. The money went to the Trauma Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group based in San Francisco's General Hospital. The Trauma Foundation has long assaulted gun ownership going so far as to run full-page ads in major newspapers to promote anti-gun legislation. CWF's 1993 Annual Report detailed the work of the new Center: ''[L]inking several leading activist organizations, the Pacific Center is helping train those involved with the [Violence Prevention] Initiative in order to create a statewide network of advocates who can educate the media, public officials and other leaders on the public health perspective for violence prevention." One such "linking" was with LCAV to produce the resource manual on passing local ordinances. Pacific Center provided staff assistance, while Policy Director David Farrar contributed his expertise. The LCAV project also borrowed anti-smoking activist Mark Pertschuk, son of former FTC Chairman Michael Pertschuk, of the California Preemption Education Project (a joint project of Western Consortium for Public Health and Americans for Nonsmokers Rights), which receives funding from CWF. Playing the Child Card Of all CWF activities, the one generating the most publicity has been the Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence Against Kids. Begun in 1993, it uses TV ads, public service announcements and direct mailings "to mobilize citizen action." CWF shamelessly plays the child card. This tried-and-true tactic originated with Marian Wright Edelman and her Children's Defense Fund. It entails a three- step process: First, define an issue (e.g., health care, gun control, poverty) as a children's problem. Second, propose a government solution. Third, attack those who disagree with the specific policy as anti- children. Thus, "There are too many handguns, too many gun dealers and too many kids losing their lives to this epidemic, and it needs to stop," foundation President Gary Yates told the L.A. Times in April. The TV ads, narrated by veteran Hollywood leftist Ed Asner, told Californians the "number one killer of kids . . . is handguns." A second ad shows guns on an assembly line, with a voice-over: "Business is booming, a handgun is produced every 20 seconds and they're put to use on our kids. Ten kids are killed every day. A kid commits suicide with a handgun every X hours. It's an epidemic." Suter notes that a "kid" includes anyone up to age 18-even young thugs involved in drug trafficking. Viewers could call a toll-free number and receive a Citizen involvement Kit, a brochure containing the names of community organizations to contact (most of them funded by CWF), names and addresses of elected officials, and a list of meaningless 'facts" with which to confront officials, e.g., "There are l 8 times more gun dealers than McDonald's in California." The kit also contained three postcards to send to legislators asking: What are you doing to prevent handgun violence against California kids'? Behind the scenes of this endeavor has been the private political consulting firm of Martin & Glantz. Based in Marin County, it lists among its clients The Nature Conservancy, and the Ford Foundation. Partners Angie Martin and Gina Glantz (no relation to anti- tobacco enthusiast Stanton Glantz) have earned a reputation for the skill with which they manage advocacy campaigns. They received over $2 million through 1994, and in 1995 were awarded an additional $6 million over three years "to continue and expand the multimedia public education campaign." A highlight of this campaign to date was a statewide, 90-minute teleconference titled "First Aid for What's Killing Our Kids: A Prescription for Prevention," which "joined the public and policy makers in Washington, D.C. and 18 conference sites in an unprecedented discussion of specific policy options for reducing violence." The teleconference, held in February 1995. featured pre-recorded appearances by Donna Shalala, secretary of Health and Human Services, and U.S. Senators Bill Bradley (D- NJ) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). The 1,6()() participants made the following predictable policy recommendations: * Banning so-called Saturday night specials * "Home rule" for handgun regulation (the preemption tactic) * Regulation of handguns as a consumer product * Increasing the penalty on carrying a concealed handgun The 1995 annual report describes "the groundbreaking video-conference" in glowing terms as "an important tool for |CWF's ] policy goal of developing long term public awareness and support for preventive solutions to handgun violence." Ironically, these recommendations would result in greater violence. Since criminals ignore gun laws, disarming innocent citizens is a policy that costs snore, not fewer, lives. [continued]