Tobacco Documents Online

REPUBLIC~ 26 Phoenix, Arizona Cancer? Not by a Puff March 1, 1967 Pathologist Partly Discounts Perils of Nicotine WASHINGTON PQST Washington, D.C. March 1, 1967 WASHINGTON (AP)-A New York Pat}vologist yesterday ,urged reading of a new book on safety in smoking "as a use- ful corrective on a subject too many people think has been solved." The pathologist, Dr. William~ B. Ober, director of labora- tories, Knickerbocker HospitaL moreover seored the U.S. sur- geon generahs 1964 report on smokft He said the report. lacked scientific objectivity and r`suppressed evidence which ran counter to the preconceived assumption that cigarette smoke causes lung cancer." IN RECOMMENDING science writer Lloyd Malian's book, "It Is Safe to Smoke," Dr. Ober said the danger in too easily accepting the theory that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer is that "it will blind us to other possible causes such as air pollution, and funds will not be forthcoming for further re- search." Dr. Ober, who also is associate professor of pathology at New York Medical College, conceded at a news conference that he favore& a particular brand of cigarettes "because I like the package." He said of the surgeon general's report'that prompted the hazard warning now printed on cigarette packs: "The plain fact is that the overwhelming majority of people who smoke do not die of lung cancer." Dr^Ober. Urged more resear& and experimentation to de- termine the effects of smoking, not with mice or guinea pigs, but with monkeys. - , Mallan told the news conference that the theme of his book Is "It Can Be Safe to Smoke," and that he.would have pre- ferred that as its title, because in his personal opinion smok- ing of nonfiltered cigarettes "can be hazardous." Mallan made the point that Dr. Ober's brand had only the more conventional cellulose filter, which "is letting the gases Into your lungs." Dr. Ober's rejoinder was, "I think people are entitled to go to hell in their own way, and they wiIl.'," MALLAN RECOMMENDED cigarettes having both cellu- lose filters aad those containing activated charcoal fortified with substances to capture up to 87 per cent of smoke gases. Mallan said he would not encourage people who have stopped smoking to take it up again or have nonsmokers start,, and "certainly I would not want young people to start smok- ing if they have not' yet done so." He gave this reason for writing the book: "The public has a rightto know the facts ... if people simply cannot kick the habit, they should smoke without a feeling of guilt or fear. .. that might well be more damaging physiologically (as well as psychologically) than smoking itself." 1003D4-~,? g.2 `Safe to Smoke' Author Says It All D~peilds... By' Morton Mintz start' again, Certainly I would Waahingtoa Po.t 8taff Writer I not want youngpeopleg tostart, The author of "It Is Safe To ; smo;:.• if they have not yet Smoke" conceded under ques- j done so." tioning yesterday that the title ~ T`- , of his book, he of his just-issued book is in- said, is not that it is "safe to accurate. smoke;" but that it "can be The author, Lloyd Malan, safe"-provided the cigarettes said he did "not particularly are equipped with certain like the title" and~ had "pro- kind5 of filters. tested at first" to his publisher, ; Mallan ts a science writer FIawthorn Books, Inc., of New York City. But Hawthorn in- sisted on "It Is Safe. .:" be- cause it had made an invest- ment in the book and "wants i to sell books," Mallan said. He was questioned at a press conference sponsored by Haw- thorn. Its editor-in-chief, Fred { ~:erner, has said that the firstt printing of the book was 25,000' hardcover copies, and that { Pocket Books will issue it in paperback. Mallan opened his meeting Dr. Ober said "It Is Safe " should be read by the public because it is a useful corrective to too-easy accept- ance of the theory that cigar- ette smoking causes lung can- cer. The danger in such ac- ceptance, he said, "is that it will blind us to other possible causes ... an& funds will not be forthcoming for further re- search." ` In~ a press release from Hawthorn, Dr. Ober also was ' quoted as saying thaG "Smok- ling and Health," the report i issued in January, 1964, by an advisory committee to the ~ Surgeon General of the Public. ; Health Service, lacked "scien- tific objectivity and, in fact, suppressed evidence which ran counter to the pre-con- eeived notion that cigarette smoke causes lung cancer." ; Testified in 1965 cal College and di ector of with reporters by rPnii;,a s I In 1965;, Dr. Ober had been laboratories at Knickerbocker prevared statemPrt i., .,,m,.; f one of 39 medical and statisti- p ; w he emphasized "that' mv irrpn- I cal specialists who fauited~ tne out ,0 examined a can- as Ineport in appearances before tion is not t o encourage pel ope who have stopped smoking to cer cases. - _._____ the Senate Commerce Com- mittee. The key conclusion of - E ` the report was, "Cigarette I who returned from the Soviet ~ Union in 1959 to contend that'~ j Lunik, the rocket the Russians I said they had: fired past the moon, "never existed." In 1965 he contended that the "walk In space" of a Soviet cosmon• aut was known to American authorities t'o be another hoax. E=pert' also Speaks 11 .With Mallan at the presss conference was Dr. William~ B. Ober, associate professor of pathology at New York Medi- r ' ital in Manhattan Hos ho b 10 00 h smoking is a hazard of suffi- cient importance to warrant appropriate remedial action." He and another lung spe- cialist, Dr. John H. Mayer Jr. of Kansas City, Mo., were among those who testified I that they had no connection i with the tobacco industry. I In a recent interview, Dr. Mayer said that' after he testi- I fied, certain unnamed ciga-( ~ irette companies had tried to ~ O I express their gratitude by of- I O lfering an unspecified sum as CJ ( compensation, but he had re- I O fused to accept, He said he 1 4~1, saw nothing wrong with the off er. Maldan, says that a person who is going to smoke is 11 ,av co "safer"-not, as in the title,~i N ''safe"=if he smokes cigar- ettes that have two filt'ers- ~~ one of cellulose acetate, which traps possibly cancer-causing particles, and a second of activated& charcoali which is in- tended to block gases that paralyze the hairlike cilia 1n the airways. The cilia are then unable, the argument goes, to beat back the mucous later that captures the particles. Mallan rests his case in good part on a listing of survival times in various solutions of cigarette smoke of single- celled creatures called para- mecia, although their rele- vance to humans is not estab- llshed. T I