Tobacco Documents Online

SChool ot Public Epidemiology July '2, !(J:~ ]Dr. Francis J. L. B!asing~ane Executive Vice President American Medical Association AMA- Education and Research ~oun~a~on' ' " 535 Xor~n Dearborn Stree~ Chicago, Illinois 80610 Dear Doctor Blasingame: For your information andfor a protcc:ive record I am ~"~ you to confirm vecbal expressions to ~ne effect that a number of us who participated in ~he Session on Research ~ Tobacco and Heal:h a~ the A~IA m.ee~ing in S~ Fcancisco on June 19, !968, were greatly distu:-bed by ~he urJor~nate and contradictory !angua~e which appeared in p~mp,le~. T~e Pzoject for Research on Tobacco and Health. Repor~ to the Profession and Absiracts of the Grants, June 1988", issued by the A~erican R~Iedica! Association - Education an~ Research Foundation. The statements in question are in pa~'agraphs 5 and 8 on page 5 of "~.'- The Project - Review and Futur~ . These statements, clipped from the ZexZ are as follows: ': This conference c~early indicated that th~ problems relatea ~o estabIisl'dng ~ny ~d o~ caus~ and effec~ relations~p ~wee~ tobacco -x u~ rand h~Ith ~e far mo~e complex ~ h~d bee~ supposal. The ~i. ~ ptoducm of ~obacco combustion are many and Wed. New ~ec~iques ~ir study. In ad~[~on, the effects of smo~ng mus~ b~ disfin~ai~hed from th~ effecu of d:e ~v~r h~er~ing en~onmen~ pollution at~ribuub[c to automob~e en~n~s and [nfl~t~M w~es. don~ slowly. M~ny yc~rs m~y b~ required to g~k¢~ suffic~em cxp~men~[ fa~s and d~ ~o clc'ar wh~t ~ at ~st a mudd~cd pmtur~. • The statemen~ that "This confc.rc:~ce " {the workshop at Colorado in Xovcluber 1U66) clu:u'z.y indicat~:d ~h~:t t;~c nrnb!ems related t(, ~,-v kind of cause and effect relziion ~ni,~ betv~cen tobacco use and r~eai~i~ fa:" moz'e complex ~han had been suo~o'.3c,_i': (underscoring added) is n~)i Zruc, nccor(lin~ to my memory. [ presided at that conference and have no ccco- iccc~ion of ~hc adoption of such a gencraliza%ion. The statement is suhjec~ ~o ~nisin~crpceta~ion and ~isuse.

This paragraph 5 c,.n.'_ ..... ~_~ .... tke recorded policy of the Eouse of Delegates of the Americe_.~ .~.i~fiical Association, adopted in 1965, ~,;hich is quoted on page 4 of t!'.c o:'c...:ace of this Report as follows: (there is} "a si.#nificant relationship between cigarette smokin~ ~'..~d the incidence of lung cancer and certain other diseases, and cigarette smoking is a serious health h~.-~'~!. " In the text, tb, at statement is follo~'ed by reasonable comments on problems of establishing ce'Jsn!itv be~veen tobacco smoke and disease, but the discussion does not go so fe.r as to imply that "any kind'of cause and effect rela~on~snzp bet~,~,'eeP, tobacco use ~uud health has not'been established. As far as I kno~, ti:e i-!ouse of Delegates of the AMA has not changed the above-quoted poiic.v. At the end of the S~ss,. .... on January 19, Dr. Leonard ~vl. Schuman, ~oderator of the final p~n~.'~, co~.mented critically upon the "unfortunate ~ ~ the orogress report on the Project language on page 5 in ~h~ o~o~a~e to for Research on Tobacco ez.d~.~.~;~=~+'~I". A Xerox copy of Dr. Schuman's statement is attached to this letter. As stated in the last sentence, I ~o~ed Dr. Schuman in his cow, merits. In addison I made a s~at ement of my o~, substantially as expresscd in this letter. It ~vas a pleasure to see you at the dinner gathering of tl~e Committee and its guests at the Blue Fox on the evening of June 18. I have writ;.en to Dr. Singer, with a copy to D~o Secrets, thanking tl~em and the American Medical Association for the honor and provilege accorded me by the appointment as Chairman of the Session on Research on Tobacco and Health. I thought that the meetin~ was highly important and interesting, and I offer congratulations to all who were concerned in it. With best wishes, cc: Dr. Seevers Dr. Singer Dr' Schuman .// Sincerely yours,

"..7o::~ for the reco:'d, I f,a~ ~o,~-~]].e,fl to ~o'~a:~,~t" cn the unfortuuat~ lano-~.~., on pa~e five in the preface to the prosrcss report on the Project for ~escarch on Tobacco and Health u?on ~.~h~h ..... today's discussions ~.~we based. tun<~te.+y, t~.+.+ language can be and ha~ been misinterpreted in soma press rep+n+ts to the eff+zt, first, that the +..H,A. is in soma manner altering itn' ~++++- festival i.~u~;itio:~, that cigarette ~mo]~ir..g is a serious bca!th hazard. I can find no evidence of such change in positicn. Seceud!y, the interpretation h:~s been made thz~ science has yet to establish au,,' k~..'~,:, of cause and effect relationship between tobacco use and health. ~"-~ implication has been carried ¢ven further to the effect that not even bas~e assoziationa have been established. On the contrary, the studies of the Iza~y investigators abstracted in the Progress Report and the overv~he!ming ~ajority of all other research efforts the.~a areas enhance our understanding of thz mechanisms involved in the ~.~!~- ..... ~+s~.u relationships bet~.~ezn nmoxit~g and several Important dlseaPes of man. For the most part, these many s=ud~es carry us closer to Ju+,g++t+tt~nts of cau~a!ity in some diseases and s=~engthen the Judgements of cau~nllty made four years ago on the basis of thousands of studi~s then completed. On the basis of what we have heard here today alone, I wo,ld cont:e+~t pre~s report to ~he effect that "in ~he past four years nothJ.og oP hazards . signifi=ance has been found to tie (the) smoking ~o health " Ou~" Chairman of this meeting, Dr. Stanhope Bayne-Jones, joins ~a in the~e Co~.nent s.