Tobacco Documents Online

w a~{ , :. • 0 C circ (2/1/79) wk Staff : This is our~statement when asked for comment on the paper published today in THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE by Friedman, a CTR grantee. The paper itself is in the Library. This is one of'thousands of studies done independently in the 25 years during which the industry has pooled funds for veeeeph grants through the Council for Tobacco Research. Grantees are always encouraged to publish their findings. This study reports relationships between various factors and de-ath rates. There isn't arq suggestion of cause-and~-effect. For example, it shows that women smokers who have more than three drinks a day have lower death rates than women smokers who drink less. Women exposed to occupational hazards have much lower death rates than women without those exposures. Smokers who attended college have three times the death rate of smokers who did not. And so on. This and so aruch else in the medical literature just shows that we have a great deal more to learn before we can reach any solid conclusions about smoking. It may or may not be hazardous, and that's where we are.