Tobacco Documents Online

The annual Wootten report on the cigarette industry included a section on smoking and health. The para,graph at right was included in the "I Predict" i I - f ssue o Printers Ink. [I. Srnoking & health Scientific developments related to I anti-cigarette charges were few and far between during 1'9611. On the last day of' 1961D1 two doctors-Barnes of Denver and Rztxenhofer of Austria-publishsd' the most extensive pathological study to date on lung cancer, in volving no fewer than 26;545 autopsies. The stntisticA studies that have made the headlines are based on, death certificate notations, usually unsupportedi by au+----- -- topsy.) Barnes and Ratzenhofer con+ cluded that persons who once would have succumbed to tuberculosis are now succumbing to, lung cancer. Pub- lished in the American Medical Assn.. Journal, this research received little publicity among laymen. Nor was it mentioned by anti~cigar- ette careerists, who continued' to seek newspaper treatment' with repeated in- terpretations of' past statistical surveys and' with, promises of more to come. On the animal side, experiments have gen- erally failed to produce lung cancers with cigarette smoke. One rat research- er told an overseas group in a moment of candor that "spinach condensate has 3.4 per cent more benzpyrene thani cigarette smoke condensate." Repeated publicity assaults on the statistical front, which ignore every- thing' but' tobacco, have failed to con- vince such eminent biostatisticians as Berkson of the Mayo Clinic. Berkson notes that lung; cancer, digestive cancer and heart disease rates are lowest' for :.ti:~ :n -: PPtINT'ERS' INK January 5; 1962 Tjhe tobacco industry will keep on insisting that no demon- strable proof' exists linking smoking and lung cancer. This familiar statement v<ill be made re larl -i th gu y n e J fice of mountfng scientific evidence that smoking and disease are related. The industry, too, through its various public relations arms„ wiili gravely issue periodic bulletins noting that the industry is conducting, its own research to determine if smoking has any effect on health. But no married, higher for 'unsoarried,"and;-;"-n,=i:i-)n ,. highest for divorced persons: "Onc sug- 1 gestedl explanation," he was qlaoted, "is that all these statistical associations are the reflection of basic inaccuracies ` and biases of the statistics." . '- A.. pointed sidelight on the contro- - versy was provided! by the American I, _ = Cancer Society, much of whose "educa= ~? ~ tional" program consists of anti-tobacco reiterations. Its 1'9611 "Cancer Facts and Figures" reveals that "From 1954 to date, the American c;ancer boeiety nas . awarded over $4-million im grants for research in lung cancer." Itt is signifi' cant', in assessing the propaganda as- pect, to note that' during this same -,- period the Tobacco Industry Research J Committee appropriatedl more than $4.6-million for research grants. I J 635 3 0419' 555) 4 results of this research, will appear.