Tobacco Documents Online

TO: Robert F. Gertenbach FROM: Leonard So Zahn February 19, 1985 CC:WDH SCS SUBJECT: Round-table Discussion on Cancer, The Environ- ment and The News Media, New York, Feb. 8, 1985. This sparsely attended session purportedly was held to pro- vide a forum for scientists and journalists to express their views of the problems involved in covering cancer and the envi- ronment. It also provided a forum for at least.one member of the audience to attack the tobacco industry with views supported, and prompted by, the comments of panelist N.~~ER, sciehce and environment writer for Time Magazine. In her opening remarks, she said tobacco was the largest single cause of environmental cancer. The less that's written about smoking, the more likely people are to smoke. The problem is that there isn't much "new" news about the dangers of smoking and so it's difficult to get stories printed. She also inveighed against the tobacco industry's influence over media coverage on smoking and health because of its advertising power. (This theme was picked up by some of the other journalists, but to a lesser extent and also with reference to other industries involved in environmental health situations.) Perhaps the most reasoned comments of the day were from ROY ALBERT, deputy director of the Institute of Environmental Medi- cine (IEM) at New York University (where the discussion took place). Without mentioning tobacco, Albert noted: The dose-response relationship is the only way to try to un- derstand the mechanisms of carcinogenesis. Unfortunately, "we really don't know" what the mechanisms are. Oncogenes comprise a promising field, but we're not at the point where we know enough about causation even by "the oncogene route" to be able to know what the shape of the dose-response curve will be. There's much uncertainty in estimating the amount of cancer that's likely to be caused by levels of environmental exposure that are commonly encountered. There are major uncertainties and considerable controversy over the risk assessment approach to evaluating environmental carcinogens. The identification of car- cinogens is slow and costly. Evaluating agents identified by bioassay is controversial because of powerful conflicting inter- ests -- industry vs. environmentalp groups. h~ PUBL,C RELA~,ONS COUNSEL nd Associales~ln~ LINCOLN ROAD °P.O, BOX 223 ,GREAT NECK, N.Y, 11022 (over)

There's no such thing as a threshold because every agent has some effect. It's impossible to eliminate carcinogens completely unless there's a full ban on everything. The environmental carcinogens that have been identified ac- count for only a "very tiny" fraction of cancer. Because of media coverage, the public is fed up with "the cancer of the week." Actually, very few carcinogens have been identified. ~here are all the carcinogens that are causing cancer? Is diet a major factor? What carcinogens can be included here? The fact is we haven't scratched the surface in finding the agents that cause a substantial number of cancers. ARTHUR'UPTON, director of the IEM and former head of the ~at!ona! Cancer Institute, gave a general rundown of the envi- environmental cancer picture, not omitting the smoking aspect. There's still speculation about the major causes, he said in citing the Doll-Peto data Isomething can be done about the 30% or so of cancers caused by smoking.) Occupational factors prob- ably don't account for much cancer. There's still considerable controversy, uncertainty and confusion about cancer and the environment. FRANCO MUGGIA, head of the oncology division at NYU School of Medicine (and a last-minute replacement), spoke from the clini- cian's standpoint, mentioning a variety of factors and personal habits as being involved (smoking, the sun, alcohol, excess cof- fee intake, etc.}. ~Vhen the discussion was opened to the audience, one man there assailed the tobacco industry as muzzling press coverage of smoking and health through its advertising dollars. He said half the people in the U.S. don't know that smoking causes cancer, a point picked up by journalist MAX GOMEZ, now ~ealth and science / editor of KTW-TV, Philadelphia. Gomez said he didn't know what h~ could do about that. He reports on smoking and healt5 "every chance I get," but there are times when he worries about crossing the line between education and advocacy. JERRY BISHOP, medicine writer for the Wall Street Jo~.rnal, and EDWARD EDELSON, science editor of the New York Daily News, had little in the way of original contributions. Bishop, who moderated the discussion, said that negative stories rarely are printed. Edelson, the most cynical member of the panel, said most newspapers deliberately have inadequate news coverage in order to maintain advertising revenues. ~ sessi~'nn w~s supported by a grant from Rea~er's Digest. i_~ the panelists, o~r at least the ~ress p~o~le~ ~ot severa red dollars each for ~hei~ participation. ~ -END-