Anne Landman's Collection
The Smoking Controversy: a Perspective ["The Smoking Controversy: a Perspective", TI Position Paper. (C)]
Abstract
This report is a propaganda piece published by The Tobacco Institute in 1978 "in the belief that public discussion about tobacco smoking is in the public interest and that the smoking controversy must be resolved by scientific research." The report quotes eminent writers, doctors and scientists throughout (many of whom were tobacco industry consultants) on the subject of smoking and health. One esteemed writer quoted in the piece (Susan Sontag) portays public health efforts to control tobacco as "bordering on hysteria." (Bates Page 0085029). The paper quotes Sherwin Feinhandler, a cultural anthropologist at Harvard Medical School (and industry consultant) as saying, "...the denial of pleasure [is]...an attempt to sieze or maintain political power." The paper states, "The declared 'wars' against disease are being waged by government and voluntary health agencies beyond the realm of science...we are on the brink of paranoia."
The paper states that "The anti-smoking forces refuse to face up to the truth [that no one knows the root causes of cancer]. Instead, they persist in perpetuating the idea that the case against smoking is proved. They proceed with their multi-million dollar programs against smokers..."
This paper is one of the most strongly-worded and comprehensively misleading missives issued by the industry. It was written before the industry chose its words more carefully. Through today's lens it is a noteworthy historical piece that showcases the industry's remarkable ability to recruit credible academics and twist facts to support its views and deceive the public. It also reveals the level of the industry's vitriol against public health authorities as they pursued their quest to reduce tobacco-related disease and death.
Fields
- Quotes
The obsession with smoking has led many doctors automatically, unthinkingly, to advise all patients to stop smoking without any consideration of how this will affect the individual patient. This runs directly contrary to enoightened medical practice, which is to treat the whole person...
...The Nobel Laureate, Professor Ulf von Euler, said that it is surprising that so little research has been devoted to the "positive effects" of smoking. "No one really believes that such a large group of humanity would be using tobacco or products containing nicotine if it was not for the fact that it gives effects that can be considered positive," he said...
Another eminent researcher, Dr. Carl Seltzer of Harvard, says the evidence suggests that for some individuals to give up smoking might subject them to critical levels of hypertension. That view is echoed in a different way by Dr. Walter Menninger, of the Menninger Foundation, who says smoking relieves tension in certain types of individuals. If they do not get this relief, he says, they could well develop psychosomatic illnesses...
...IN march 1977, the head of the Institute for Clinical Chemistry at the German Heart Center in Munich said that nicotine may be beneficial for smokers in its calming and stimulating effects and that it does not cause heart attacks...
...One of the world's foremost authorities on stress is Dr. Hans Selye, author of more than 600 scientific papers and 12 books...In a statement on smoking and health, Dr. Selye declared that it is "frightening" that no one mentions the benefits of tobacco. "Man will always seek gratifying relief from stress," Dr. Selye said, as he does from hunger, thirst or the sexual urge; our responsiblity is not to lock up avenues that may be dangerous, but to determine as objectiveiy as possible which are the most and which are the least dangerous in proportion to their benefits. Only comparative studies of this kind are meaningful because, if a tense person who would normally smoke is prevented from doing this, he will undoubtedly seek relief from stress in some other way which may be still more dangerous."
- Company
- Tobacco Institute
- Author
- Tobacco Institute 1
- Region
- United States
- Named Person
- Thomas, L.
- Blumenthal, H.T.
- Sontag, S.
- Feinhandler, Sherwin J. Ph.D. (Behavioral/Social consultant to tobacco industry)Assisted PM by describing the social benefits of smoking. Work was seminal in
- Schwartz, H.
- Feinstein, A.
- Voneuler, U.
- *Seltzer, Dr. Carl C. (use Seltzer, Dr. Carl C.) (Industry consultant, CTR grantee, CTR Special Projects)Defense
- Menninger, W.
- Keys, A.
- Schievelbein, H.
- Aviado, Domingo M., M.D. (CTR Consultant; Special Projects Recipient)Dr. Aviado was a University of Pennsylvania professor and did work for tobacco companies. Dr. Aviado did secret dog inhalation studies in 1970s which were apparently covered up. Dogs were inhaling. No research papers were ever done, apparently (B.C. 7/7/94).
- Burch, P.
- Fisher, R.
- Selye, Hans (CTR grantee & Special Project recipient)Hans Selye was a CTR grantee and Special Project recipient. (PMI's Introduction to Privilege Log and Glossary of Names, Estate of Burl Butler v. PMI, et al, April 19, 1996)
- Barnard, C.
- Califano, Joseph Anthony, Jr. (Sec. of U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare)Joseph Califano Jr. is the former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (1977-1979), in Carter's administration (A 5/17/94; WP 4/3/85). He spoke against the tobacco industry on ABC's "Day One" program. He testified before the Waxman subcommittee on 5/17/94. He was an adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson (AP 5/17/94). He was President of Columbia University's Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, circa 1994 (AP 5/17/94).
- Sontag, S.
- Hammond, E.C.
- Steinfeld, J.
- Cronkite, Walter Leland, Jr. (TV News Anchor, CBS Evening News (1963-81))
- Auerbach, Oscar, M.D. (Research Scientist, VA Hospital, E. Orange, NJ)
- Fraumeni, J.
- Bross, I.D.
- Schmidt, B.
- Rauscher, F.
- Hinds, W.C.
- First, M.W.
- Huber, Gary L., M.D. (Harvard University: Conducted Smoke Inhalation Studies)Testified for industry
- Banzhaf, John F., III (Exec. Dir. Action of Smoking & Health (ASH))Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).Professor of Law at Georgetown. Banzhaf succeeded in using the Fairness Doctrine to get cigarette commercials off television in 1968. See Banzhaf FCC, 405 F, 2d 1082 (D.C. Cir. 1968) (affirming FCC ruling that radio and television stations must devote a significant amount of broadcast time to case against smoking). His telephone number is (202) 659-4310. The big focus in past years has been to force OSHA to enforce smoking bans, per Matt Bars. ASH publishes Smoking and Health Review bulletins. "A leading anti-smoking activist" (Chic. Sun-Times 6/23/93). Action on Smoking and Health is located at 2013 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. (Castano Expert List) See Action on Smoking a Health, TTLA Almanac - Names.
- Pendino, J.
- Greene, B.
- Wright, P.
- Ingersoll, R.G.
- Blaine, J.G.
- Type
- PUBLISHED DOC
- Litigation
- Minnesota AG
- Subject
- industry
- industry influence
- industry research scientists
- industry response
- industry strategy
- health belief
- health claim
Annotations
- 1. Tobacco Institute Author
- Affiliation:
Tobacco Institute
- Affiliation:
Document Images
The Smoking Controversy: A Perspective
A Statement by
The Tobacco Institute
December/1978
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Introduction / 1_
I. The Monolithic ]udgment / 5
I[. The Psychological War Escalates
[[I. The Cancer Clique / 19
i'V. Conclusion / 25
End Notes / 27
Bibliography / 31
This paper is published by The Tobacco Institute in the belief that
public discussion about tobacco smoking is in the public interest
and that the smoking controversy must be resolved by scientific
research.
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INTRODUCTION
Are we on the
brink of paranoia?
There has been a profound and ominous change in attitudes toward
health. Dr. Lewis Thomas, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center, recalls that not many years ago, when a patient visited
a doctor, it was for an ailment or iniury that could be readily discerned.
N. ow, it is estimated, as many as 75 percent of all visits to doctors
are by people who have nothing organically wrong with them.t
Dreaded killers and cripplers like tuberculosis, pneumonia and
polio have been brought under control. People are living longer than
ever. Yet perhaps as a result of mass communications and widery
publicized "wars" against disease, many have dark perceptions of the
world as a place where, in Dr. Thomas' words, "the microbes are
always trying to ~et at us, to tear us cell from cell, and we only stay
alive and whole through cliligence and fear."
Dr. Herman T. Blumenthal, a gerontologist writing in Harper's,
focuses on cancer, wondering whether we really are havipg an ep-
demic of it, "or of cancerophobia--or both?" He says that "the
present climate seems to be a par:icularly alarmist one, perhaps
bordering on hysteria.''2
Susan Sontag, widely regarded as one of today's most astute in-
tellectuals, has observed the pher:omenon. "Cancer is nov.,. in the
service of a simplistic view of the world that can turn paranoid,"
she says.a In the minds of many people, it has been erroneousiy
blown up to "epidemic" proportions. And when society feels
threatened by an epidemic of indeterminate cause, she points out,
many look for a "scapegoat external to the stricken community."
Toleration
of pleasures
Dr. Sherwin J. Feinhandler, cultural anthropologist on the faculty et
the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, has
arrived at parallel conclusions. "In a society where tensions and
anxieties give rise to anger and frustration," he says, "there is alwavs
a danger in allowing pressure groups to influence legislation re-
stricting individual freedoms simply to alleviate annoyances to
another segment of society. In times of high tension and anger, it is in-
cumbent upon government to move with caution and deiibdration.''4
Tracing the phenomenon through history, he has found :ecurring
instances where the denial of pleasure was at bottom, aP. attempt
TIIVIN 0055929
T030443
seize or maintain political power. This was true of ancient dietary
laws, sexual taboos, restrictions on the theater and
Prohibition, Dr.
Feinhandler says. Others would say it is true today of
anti-tobacco
programs.
Others have cited ~he repressiveness of sumptuary taxes, devised by
authoritarian nobility to keep peasants in their place by limiting their
pleasures. As early as Chaucer's time, ale and good food were taxed
(in public houses, but not in castles), ostensibly because the enjoy-
ment of them was physically debilitating, that is, hazardous to health.
Cigarette taxes, of course, are examples of today's sumptuary taxes.
Beyond the realm
of reality
Clearly the current controversy over smoking and health
involves
some elements of the politics of pleasure and the use of
disease as a
political metaphor. The declared "wars" against disease are
being
waged by the government and voluntary health agencies beyond
the
realm of science.
The "war against cancer" Initially, their "war against cancer" concentrated on medical
re-
search. It was a scientific program conducted against disease.
Then it
• . . degenerated into a
war against cigarettes.., degenerated into a war against cigarettes, with untold
billions of
Now it has further de- warnings every year about the alleged health hazards of
smoking.
Now it has further degenerated into a war against smokers,
waged
generated into a war
against smokers.., through vilification, banishment from public places, denial of
em-
ployment and repressive taxation.
No one really knows whether this personalized warfare against
tens of millions of Americans will prevent a single case of
lung cancer
or heart disease. But as noted, many people do look for a
"scapegoat"
when they feel threatened. In this case, it is smoking. We are
on the
brink of paranoia.
As observed recently and critically by New York Times
editorial
writer Harry Schwartz, "a mounting current of opinion is
coming
around to the conclusion that certain major illnesses in
certain large
classes of people are the fault of the victims, and those
victims should
be dealt with in a stern manner ....
"It arises from the fact that most medical costs have been
col-
lectivized and are paid either by private insurance or from
the gov-
ernment's funds, as in Medicare and Medicaid.''5
The declaration of war can be seized by some as a license for
ex-
treme measures. They demand unquestioning allegiances and
faith in
the righteousness of their case. They brook no contrary views.
Facts inimical to the cause, as they perceive it, are to be
ignored
or suppressed. Dissenters are dismissed as self-interested.
Passions
blot out reason.
2
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The more elusive victory appears, the greater the resort to harsh
and unjustified means, including the denial of personal rights and the
stretching of truth.
In this instance, there is one overriding truth: No one knows the
~root cause or causes off cancer.
And while such contributing factors as high blood pressure and
obesity are known to be involved, leading scientists say the root
cause or causes of heart disease are unknown as well.
The anti-smoking forces refuse to face up to that truth. Instead,
they persist in perpetuating the idea that the case against smoking
is proved. Period. They proceed with their multi-million dollar pro-
grarns against smokers.
In the meantime, the quest for knowledge about disease is
prejudiced.
The other side
Those who produce and market tobacco products have become a
natural target of the forces who would purge the leaf from
society.
In accepting a defensive role, they have developed a unique
knowl-
edge of and sensitivity to more aspects of the controversies
than
any other single source.
They know that the controversy is multi-faceted, regardless of
the
closed-minded attitude of smoking critics. They also know that
their
own views are widely regarded as self-serving and subjective.
Notwithstanding, they have chosen not to relinquish the
battle-
field, in the adversaries' metaphor; instead they have thrust
them-
selves vigorously into the public policy debates in mass
media,
regulatory and legislative deliberations and even in
courtrooms.
While providing impressive and ongoing support of medical and
scientific research, the tobacco industry continues to present
aspects
of the controversy little known to the public and little
understood by
many in the health professions.
It is in the interest of promoting a balanced, reasonable and
re-
sponsive debate on the question of smoking and health that The
This paper cites state- Tobacco Institute presents this paper on "the other side,"
concededly
ments by ,:any inde- the industry's side. But it also cites statements by many
independent
pendent authorities with authorities with impeccable credentials--statements that have
not
impeccable credentials.., been given a milligram of weight in the multi-million-dollar
pro-
grams against smokers.
This paper will develop and document the following points:
1. Millions of smokers choose to smoke for reasons and satis-
factions not fully understood. What would be the consequences
if
tobacco were banned or all smokers were convinced to quit
smoking?
A number of leading authorities, including even the authors of
the
famous 1964 Surgeon General's report, acknowledge that tobacco
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smoking has beneficial aspects. The report warned that its elimina-
tion could promote the use of other substances which could create
"a gamut of social problems."
2. Many health agencies have created the myth that the case
against smoking is closed. However, their conclusions are based
largely on statistical associations, the interpretation of which has
been questioned by leading epidemiologists.
3. Another myth--that nonsmokers are somehow harmed by
tobacco smoke-is being perpetuated. Yet the great preponderance
of evidence from independent and government studies shows that
so-called "ambient" cigarette smoke is not a health hazard to normal
nonsmokers.
4. The belief that smoking in fact is the principal cause of lung
cancer may be diverting attention from occupational and environ-
mental factors which have been found to be associated with the.
disease. As a result, employees and others may be unnecessarily af-
flicted. Such is the climate created by the health agencies. One re-
searcher who has examined the relative effects of smoking and
occupation on lung disease has asked, "Does smoking kill workers
or does working kill smokers?"
5. The public has an exaggerated notion of how much the American
Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American
Lung Association spend on smoking and health research.
6. A leading independent monitoring service for contributors has
questioned the propriety of appeals for more funds for research at
the very time the private agencies are enlarging their cash reserves
and increasing their non-research expenses. This monitor suggests the
public appeals by the ACS have been misleading.
7. The single piece of laboratory research said to prove conclusive-
ly that smoking causes cancer has been largely discredited. It was the
famous "smoking dog" study, announced with public fanfare at a
televised press conference by the American Cancer Society.
8. Because of their preconception that smoking is guilty, private
health agencies have diverted substantial funds to "educating" others
to this opinion. This unscientific approach has failed to provide
scientific evidence about the cause, prevention and cure of disease.
9. There is an alliance between the private and public agencies,
with collaboration in the acquisition and allocation of funds.
10. The "official" position is dictated by this handful of well en-
trenched people wearing a cloak of power, prestige and rectitude.
Their pronouncements are embellished, overladen with emotion and
disseminated by a volunteer army of people, many with the best of
intentions, yet misinformed.
4 TIMN 0085032
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I. THE MONOLITHIC JUDGMENT
In the tobacco and health controversy, there is a monolithic mindset
that extends to many individuals in the media and the medical pro-
fession. Media that customarily take an objective and skeptical
stance in most controversies unquesfioningly report outlandish al-
legations against cigarettes. Many reporters and doctors have un-
critically joined the anti-smoking crusade.
Are statistics proof?
Yet few are aware that years of scientific research
have failed to
Years of scientific re- provide conclusive evidence that smoking causes
disease. The statisti-
search have failed to cal associations merely raise questions without
providing answers.
provide conclusive For example, the reported rate of lung cancer has
increased, though
evidence that smoking certainly not to the "epidemic" proportions
predicted year after year.
causes disease. One often overlooked though logical explanation is
that lung cancer
largely afflicts older people and more people are
living longer. And
it has been impossible accurately to assess how
much of the recorded
increase is the result of improved diagnostic
techniques and equip-
ment, a fact that in itself raises questions about
the validity of the
statistics,s
Serious questions have also been raised by autopsy
studies, con-
ducted after the recording of statistics on which
mortality rates are
based.; Such studies often show that lung cancer
has been, on the
one hand, incorrectly stated as the cause of death
or, on the other
hand, overlooked as the cause.8 (See End Note ~1.)
Dr. Alvan Fein-
stein of Yale has pointed out that physicians tend
to look more
closely for lung cancer in smokers because of the
conventional con-
victions against cigarettes. "Cigarette smoking,"
he says, "may
coniribute more to the diagnosis of lung cancer
than it does to pro-
ducing the disease itself.''9 This may mean
inadequate medical care-
for the smokers mistakenly believed to have lung
cancer and the
nonsmoker cancer victims treated for other
ailments.
Since these troubling matters are rarely presented
by the medical
as well as the general press, they are virtually
unknown to general
practitioners. How can it be in the public interest
to keep the public
and the medical profession ignorant of the facts?
The obsession with smoking has led many doctors
automatically,
unthinkingly, to advise all patients to stop
smoking without any con-
" sideration of how this will affect the individual patient. This runs
directly contrary to enlightened medical practice,
which is to treat
the whole person.
5 TIMN 0085033
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The scourge
that never came
The historical facts suggest something altogether different from
the
popular belief nurtured by anti-tobacco forces. Throughout the
past
four centuries, the enjoyment of smoking became common in every
society which encountered tobacco. No one could reasonably deny
that smoking provides some pleasures and satisfactions for
hundreds
of millions of people. Whether it has been harmful to any
society at
large is questionable. Moreover, the use of tobacco has become
most
5rooking provides some
pleasures and saris- common in industrialized societies that have achieved the
highest
factions for hundreds standard of living and the greatest longevity.
of millions of people. The example of cigarettes, which are the primary target of many
health agencies, makes an even more dramatic point. Cigarettes
first
gained popularity near the turn of the last century. According
tQ the
anti-tobacco hysteria of that era, cigarettes caused
tuberculosis, in-
fluenza, insanity, sexual perversion, nightmares, insomnia and
slavering.l° The New York Times, for one, editorialized that if
cigar-
ettes continued to catch on, there would be a veritable scourge
and
the U. S. would suffer a decline like that of cigarette-smoking
Spain.~1 (See End Note ~2.) Cigarettes did continue to catch on,
at a
remarkable rate, and the predicted decline in public health did
not
occur. Since 1900, cigarette sales in the U. S. have risen from
fewer
than three billion cigarettes annually to more than 620
billion.12
During this period, for many reasons, average life expectancy
has
increased from 47 to 72 years.13
These statistics cannot establish cause and effect, but they can
show the absence of the dire effect predicted by the New York
Times
and others.
Why do people smoke?
How smoking of cigarettes continued to grow despite formidable
opposition and campaigns waged on the two personal levels of
mor-
ality and health is a sociological phenomenon never adequately
analyzed nor sufficiently explained.
The undaunted smoker, who continues to smoke for whatever
The undaunted reason--perhaps for an enhancement of faculties and
effectivness--
smoker.., must be
must be reckoned with.
reckoned with. If, as is now seriously advocated, smokers are to be coerced
into
not smoking through punitive taxation, prohibitions and
propaganda,
and smears of shame and guilt, a rational and decent society
would
determine first why the smoker continues to smoke.
In most questions of personal satisfactions, our increasingly
in-
dividualistic society reasonably is leaving decisions to the
individual,
6
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without coercion. Pleasures once condemned as vices, such as dancing
and theater, are now condoned. Our society permits people to fly
airplanes and to climb mountains and to ride bicycles in New York
City, however dangerous such acts may seem to some onlookers.
Bathers, a fraction of whom drown, swim at beaches without puni-
tive taxation. Joggers are regarded with approbation, although it is
known that some suffer heart attacks. Consumers whose dietary
practices are asserted to be unhealthful by some authorities are sub-
ject to nowhere near the all-out attack that smokers are.
A decent, libertarian society is committed to private choice rather
than public fiat. It believes that the adult individual knows--logi-
cally, psychologically, perhaps intuitively--what is right for him.
Individual freedoms are denied only when the larger interests of
society overwhelmingly dictate the denial. The costs of such im-
positions of will on others are carefully weighed.
Surgeon General's report
cites benefits
This clearly has not been done in the smoking-health controversy.
One searches in vain among the anti-cigarette pronouncements and
tracts for a hint that people smoke for various personal reasons.
The very real possibility that prohibiting smoking without
considering
those reasons could have serious repercussions for individuals and
society at large is never entertained by the health agencies.
Yet ironically, there is a clear warning to that effect in the very
A section of the report that is the foundation of the current campaigns against to-
Surgeon General's bacco. In "Smoking and Health: A Report of the Advisory Com-
mittee to the Surgeon General" published in 1964, a section is de-
Report is devoted to
"Beneficial Effects voted to "Beneficial Effects of Tobacco.TM It states: "Evaluation of
of Tobacco." the effects of smoking on health would lack perspective if no con-
sideration was given to the possible benefits to be derived from the
occasional or habitual use of tobacco." The report also states: "The
significant beneficial effects of smoking occur primarily in the
area of
mental health, and the habit originates in a search for
contentment.''~5
The Surgeon General's report warns that if smokers were denied
tobacco they might well turn to less acceptable means of relieving
stress and attaining pleasure.
This warning from the cornerstone of their campaigns, in a classic
case of selectivity, is absent from the pronouncements of the
health agencies.
Since the 1964 report, an enormous amount of energy, passion and
funding has been expended (1) by the government to find medical
evidence to prove the hypothesis that smoking causes lung and heart
disease and (2) by the government and many health agencies to
7
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convince smokers to stop smoking. Success in attaining those ob-
jectives has been notably lacking.
What are the
medical facts?
Significantly, some leading medical authorities have protested such
a narrow approach to the smoking and health controversy Iisee End
Note ~;3). The Nobel Laureate, Professor Ulf von Euler, said that it is
surprising that so little research has been devoted to the "positive
effects" of smoking. "No one really believes that such a large group
of humanity would be using tobacco or products containing nicotine
•.. if it was not for the fact that it gives effects that can be con-
sidered positive," he said.
Professor von Euler emphasized that little is known about the
effects of smoking on different kinds of individuals,ta
Another eminent researcher, Dr. Carl Seltzer of Harvard, says the
evidence suggests that for some individuals to give up smoking might
subject them to critical levels of hypertension,t7 That view is echoed
in a different way by Dr. Walter Menninger, of the Menninger
Foundation, who says smoking relieves tension in certain types of
individuals. If they do not get this relief, he says, they could well
develop psychosomatic illnesses,is
Other scientists have raised still other questions. For example, an
exhaustive, seven-country study was coordinated by the renowned
Dr. Ancel Keys, director of physiological hygiene at the University
of Minnesota. In his summary of the study, Dr. Keys said: "Exam-
ination.., of the so-called risk factors shows that most of those
factors, whatever may be their influence.., cannot explain the ob-
served differences in the incidence of coronary artery disease...
cigarette smoking cannot be involved as an explanation.'u9
The mechanisms
are not known
Dr. Lewis Thomas, as president and chief executive officer of
the
"We really don't know Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, heads one of the
leading
anything at a deep level health research laboratories.
about the mechanism of Says Dr. Thomas: "We really don't know anything at a deep
level about the mechanism of heart disease, or cancer, or
stroke, or
heart disease, or,, rheumatoid arthritis. We can make up stories about them, and it
cancer.., could be, I suppose, that they do have multiple causes, and are
due
to things we can't control in the environment.
"If that's true--if that should turn out to be true--that would
be
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