Tobacco Documents Online

•***DETROIT FREE PRESS/MONDAY, NOV. 4; 1985 15A . . .-a- . . r- _.--'~ BRENNAN, from Page ... However, the only study that tne tive look at the issue of smoking and tobacco council printed in full in its health. ; . annual report and described in a news "It allows them to support their release was the mouse study that found claim that the relationship between no increased lung cancer risk from smoking and health is still an open ' Jnhaling cigaset smoke. issue.. • Other members of the 12-person , Cigarets are responsible. for more =-cientific advisory board include Dr. than 300,000 deaths a year, according Leon Jacobson, emeritus professor of to the federal Centers for Disease Con• medicine at the University of Chicago, trol. The U.S. Sur- geon General has called cigarets thee tork-based to- Brennan Dr. Sheldon Sommers, clinical profes- hacco crauncil, however, found no rela- sor of pathology at Columbia Universi- tionship between cigaret smoke and ty. In a news article in the New York 'lung cancer in mice. The nine-year State Journal of Medicine, Sommers study used 10,000 mice that inhaled the said the only purpose of council re- smoke from more than 800,000 ciga- search is scientific discovery. .rets. "I'm not a propagandist. I don't give Brennan said that the study fills a a damn what happens to the tobacco gap in scientific literature and sug- industry," he said. _ gests that factors in addition to cigaret ,. smoke may be responsible for the •. THE TOBACCO research council development of lung cancer in humans. was established in 1954 by tobacco However, Garfinkel of the Ameri- manufacturers, growers and ware- can Cancer Society said rodents are not house owners, and receives almost all useful for lung cancer studies because its $9 million annual budget from ciga- their noses and throats filter out almost ret companies. In the last 30 years it has all the smoke..' .• . awarded more than $100 million for "That's been tried mariy, many research projects. Its stated purpose is times," he said. "There's no point to it. to fund "research into questions of Most people who work with tobacco_ tobacco use and health." assays use the skin (of animals) as a • In the preface to its 1984 report, the measure of how potent carcinogens council's chairman, William Hobbs, are. The whole point about doing it by ° said: '. - inhalation is nonsense. If anybody had "The council awards research single most im- portant cause of preventable death in the United States. A recent study paid for and publi- cized by the New deigned to read the literature, they wouldn't have started a study like that." • THE TOBACCO research council supports researchers at such institu- tions as Harvard University, Columbia University and the Sidney Farber Can- - Much of the money goes for basic cuts down (oh research grants), the researclrprojects. Other studies-paid- more they get people applying for !or by t iI e couii 'i~ci ave confirmed- granfs. It's"thatsiniple: Tff6re's nothing - ers who receive tobacco council money '. "They want a broad-based scientif- also receive support from the National' . ic board that understands all the vari- Institutes of Health and other health- ous aspects of diseases," said Hilda related organizations. . 1• , • Zahn....... The more the government cer Institute in Boston. Many research- smoking. and Rosweil ' Bbutwell, professor of oncology at McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wis- consin. _. Dr. Peter Howley, chief of the Lab- oratory of Tumor Virus Biology for the - National Cancer Institute, is also a member. However, the institute has said its staff may not participate in council activities after June 1986. The council's scientific director is grants to independent scientists who are assured complete scientific free- dom in conducting their studies." A spokeswoman for the council said Brennan, who is an oncologist (cancer specialist), was chosen because his specialty is one of the diseases she said was "alleged" to be associated with

11 ! ..lottery extra : Saturday's number, 335,. was drawn once befdre:.on 4-26-84. Lottery iine - 1-976-2020 „:. ,i a. ,Cancer'I'ighter aL~o aids tobacco-funded unit ~y DOLLY KATZ tobacco council's advisory board ."appalling" BRENNAN, WHO has been a member of the kel, vice-president for epidemiology and stati •s-;; free Press Medical wrner and urged that he resign. tobacco advisory board for the past four years; tics for the American Cancer Society. "But other The president and medical director of the Brennan defends his work with tobacco •evaluates research proposals and recommends good scientists do." ichigan Cancer Foundation of Detroit, which research council as no different from his previ- which ones should receive grants. He estimates Dr. Norman Edelman, chief of pulmonary :` onducts research on the causes and prevention ':. ous work as a scientific adviser to the American he is paid about $300 a day plus expenses for the medicine at Rutgers Medical School and a;', fouror five days a year he works for the council. consultant to the American Lung Association, •, f cancer, is on the scientific advisory board of ' Cancer Society, he Council for Tobacco Research-USA, an ,~; '"I don't have anything to do with the tobacco ," . Researchers have estimated that cigaret said he would not sit on the advisory board. gency supported by the tobacco industry. , industry," he said. ,:"What they set up some smoking causes more than 80 percent of lung "When one puts oneself in that position, one: Some colleagues suggest that Dr. Michael ;; years ago is a fund to support research in heart ;,,cancer cases in the United States, 30 percent of puts oneself in the potential position of being rennan, president and medical director of the "•~ disease and lung diseases ... a kind of an all U.S. cancer deaths and 30 percent of U.S: used by a powerful industry, and one has a very:," ichigan Cancer Foundation of Detroit, com- . industry medical research fund: deaths from heart disease: ` important responsibility to examine that very promises himself by associating with the pow- "I didn't conceive of it, and I don't conceive . Spokespeople and scientific advisers for the would beidifficu t to esisthand Ijustpwouldn'~,t,~~ ~rful tobacco industry. of it now, as at all dishonorable to participate in American Cancer Society and the American want to waste my energies trying to resist;Brennan "is lending his name to an effort . the rational allocation• of research funds to Lung Association said they had serious concerns them." "" that has other than pure science at heart " said medicine regardless of who the.donor of those about scientists' sitting on the tobacco advisory U-M's Warner said the cigaret industry "for , I~enneth Warner, head of the University of funds may be. All I wanted to be sure of :.. was board. i many years now has used this research fund as - Michigan's department of health planning and that there was to be no bias that prevented us • administration at its School of Public Health. from funding research whose outcome might be "I just don't think you should have anything evidence that they are trying to take an objec-, i Warner called Brennan's presence on the disadvantageous to the spon"sors." to do with that outfit," said Lawrence Garfin- See BRENNAN, Page 15A' I I i , . ..