Tobacco Documents Online

o Doctor Hits U. scientific. tionship between tobacco and cancer, has added "If the Public Health Serv- fresh salt to a wotmd vGliich has been festering ~u , S14IOhING L.NK ll1S~UTl',D ~ ~'~ the record ring'-pr _, . A Mayo Clinic scientist, in setUng marks b r f h i y is e ons o straight om interpretat a: Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney, on the rela- By BEN ZINSER = . A Mayo Clinic, doctor says the -U. S. Public Health Service o n ce attempted to produce lung cancer in ex- perimental animals with cig- arette smoke-and failed. ` And the failure, criticizes Dr. Joseph Berkson, was not' mentioned in the U: S. Sur- geon General's warning to the American people t h a t cig- arette smoking may lead to lung cancer. Dr. Berkson, a statistics ex- -pert at the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., charges t h a t the PHS's eight-page W tement on smoking a n d g cancer-in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. three months ago is "inac- curate" throughout. - * t * * ice believes that t o b a c c c for a long time. His points, however, make more smoke contains c h e m i cc a• sense than most of the arguments heard on the carcinogens (cancer - causing subject. agents) that cause lung can- S. STAR Terre ~az:ite, Indiana March 7, 1960 In an article in the Journal of the American , then the finst' task of its cer, ~f edicalresponsible scientists is to edical Association Dr. Joseah Berkson of Mayo isolate these substances in takes Dr. Burney to task for a previous article `pure culture' and to identify ~'ritten by the federal health official. Dr. Berkson their chemical structure," he was quoted by the Surgeon General as noting not only an association between smoking and ~ says. , lung cancer, but also to a wide variety of other , " DR. LEROY BUiiNEYHis Report Attacked ing enoug money on ung aclerized b• an im recision f I n ua e and o a This is the ffirst step re- diseases." What the 11iag-o scientist had noted, ' s postulatess quired by Koch for demonstration of a causa- tive agent of a disease; ` he adds. "It is furthermore the first step to be taken in order to u s e t h e discovery for amelioration of the disease." * * s * DR. BERKSON ALSO ac- cused the PHS' of not spend'- . h 1 far as I know," he cancer research. th h hJ d p 1 g g t t . DR. LEROY E. BURNEY,, "So surgeon general of the PHS, adds, ,t at ren ers maccurate a mosL every un- ~ly experiment oug About, 700 million dollars tt int' it d an ls ith" A l dditi por ea w po s an a ona . concluded in his statement on smoking in relation to ,are a ropriated annually to 1. pp that cigarette smoking is the lung cancer published from the PHS he savs~ but' "how pnncipal tactor responsrote tne runuc neartn aervice Is much... has been spent for for t h e increase in 1 u n g the negative experiment ..• carrying out the first step to cancer. and no work of this nature be taken tq realize the dis- In a letter to the A M A is in progress now." covery of an important cause Journal, Dr. Berkson partic- As for Dr. Burney's state- of lung cancer? ularly criticizes Dr. Burney ment in general, Dr. Berkson ~, So far a I can learn none ' " failure to cite the ex- says: for periments performed~ in the "The article is character- at ali." Public Health Service itself." i'z e d' by an imprecision of In these experiments, Dr. language a n d thought that B e r k s o n reveals, PHS re- renders inaccurate a 1 m o s t searchers administered c i g- every important point it deals arette smoke to m i c e but with"' failed to produce lung cancer "In particular," Dr. Berk- in them. son adds, "it contains some frank errors of omission and commission which are mis- PRESS TEI,EGRAhI leading with regard to the basic question at issue." Long Beach, California * * * * ~ch 20, 19(Q THE MINNESOTA PHYSI- CIAN accuses the P u b l i c Health Service of not being he said, is that "only about 14 per cent of the 'excess deaths' reflected in the higher rate uf smokers compared to nonsmokers were due to lung cancer, while 86 per cent were due to causes other than Iung,rancer." This hardly justifies a blanket condemnation of tobacco as the "principal" cause of cancer, as stated by Dr. Burney. This is only one point in the Burney article which has been disputed. The article im its entirety, says Dr Berksoni "is char chemical strueture." women have about the same lung cancer rate as non-smoking men." "This, almost certainly, is not true," says Dr. Berkson. "The death rate for men is greater than that of women, not only for cancer of the lung but for cancer of almost every organ that is comparable in the two sexes, and for virtually every noncancerous disease also. "The higher general mortality of the male than' the female is characteristic of the entire animal kingdom, It is usually related by biologists to the presence of two chromosomes in the cell of the female and only one in the male, not to smoking."' Dr. Berkson's advice to the Public Health Service to publish facts, not beliefs, about health problems of consumer pr~ducts is opportune. If, as he says, the service believes that tobacco smoke contains chemicals which cause lung can- cer, then the first task of its responsible scientists is to isolate these substances and identify their Any "proof" short of this is mere opinion, - and not well substantiated at that, except for the determined prejudice against a social habit. example, he cttes the statement that non-smoktng.