Tobacco Documents Online

~ (Other stories on page 25) • ' A veteran cancer researcher to- day warned Hoosier family doctors s.4o be as skeptical of theories re- %gardirig- the `cause- of' ¢aecer'as ; they_ have learned to become to- `d ward the many unfounded theories of its cure. Clarence Cook Little, Sc.D., for 16 yea¢s Znanager director oL the organization which later became the American Caacer Society, said an,iuiderstanding of • cancer awaits much further research. Addressing the final session of the scientific assembly of the Indi- ;; ana Academy of General Practice in the Seottish Rite Cathedral, Dr. Little. said-invesgg;ations ot• cancer must still be pursued in manyy directions. " _"Certain broad categories of fac- tors seem to have' earned the right to our continued attention and in- vestigation vestigation if we are to hope for the new knowledge necessary to understand and control the many forms of, the disease which we call cancer," he said. Internal 'Unbalance' Blamed The research scientist, who has held the presidencies of both the 1Jniversity of- Michigan and 'the University of Maine during his dis- tinguished career,, said cancer seems to occur under various "con- ditions of internal unbalance." There are many causes of "un- balance,"' and not enough is known about'any of these, he opined.. __ Dr. Little listed several factors, ; each having indicated it _ plays $ome role iri cancer's cause and development. , He named heredity, infection, nu- trition, hormones, nervous strain and environment as examp:es. A complete understanding of the many different kinds of cancer is dependent on further research in these fields; the speaker said. In this connection. he pointed out J,hc tobacco industry is making funds available for this, type of investi- gative work - involving heart and circulatory ills as well as cancer -by creation of the Tobacco Ln- dustry Research Committe.e. "The committee's research pro• gram is unique in that respon- sibility for research policy and de- velopment' is entirely in the hands of a Scientific Ad4isory Board- con- ,., ~'.k . .. ~ . . ~~~~. ~~anc~ sisting of 10 doctofs and scientists. 1 "In the long run, such an atti- This board, which came into'being six years ago, makes grants to independent scientists.on the basis of-the merit of'tliei'r researEli`pro- posals," he said. Dr. Little serves as scientific director to the committee. He cau- tioned against accepting any one explanation of the cancer problem, whether it be smoking, air pollu- tion, the stress of modern life or heredity. tude will boomerang and will end in disillusionment and disappoint- ment to its proponent, the practi-. ' tioner and the patient," he de- ~ ~dared. Those doing cancer research have a difficult job, the scientist. pointed out. . . Y -= "They are not encouraged by criticism and misinterpretation," he qoncludQd. - ~ , . • „ .. vidence• Is Still Lacking .- _ The debate over the relation of cig- arette smoking and lung cancer con- tinues in the JournaD of the American Medical Association. It will be re- membered that Dr. Leroy E. Bur- ney, surgeon general of the U.S. Pub- lic Health Service, published an arti- cle in the Journal last November in -which he claimed a close and dlreet. - relation between smoking and lung cancer. The following week, the Journal qditorially questioned Dr. Burney's conclusions, taking the position that they were based on "insufficient evi- dence." Subsequently ubsequently a letter to the 'JournaI from Dr. David D. Rutstein of the Harvard Medical School ex- pressed' "shock" at the editoriall Now.Dr..Joseph Berkson of the &Iayo Clinic rs;dies to Dr. Rutstein and Dr. Burney in what is perhaps the strongest statement from the medical profession yet published questioning the claim that smoking is conducive to lung cancer. Dr. Berkson charges that Dr. Bur- ney's article "is characterized by an, i mprecision of language and thought that renders inaccurate almost every )inint it deals with. In particular, it contains some frank errors of omis- sion and commission which are mis- leading with regard to the basic questions at issue." Dr. Berkson challenges Dr. Bur- ney's statement that "nonsmoking women have about, the same lung cancer death rate as nonsmoking . men." Instead, the Mayo Clinic phy- sician asserts that "the death rate for- men is 'greater than 'that° 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 non- cancerous disease also." The reliability of the Burney arti- cle is further questioned in the criti cism that its author did not use of the '.. findings of the Public Health Serv- ice pathologist, Dr_ H. L. Stewart, (tuat' cigarette smoke failed to pro- duce lung cancer in mice) qr of the statistician of the National Institutes of Health, Harold F. Dorn, in the preparation of the article. Also quite damaging to Dr. Bur-' ney's position is that charge that at the Nationali Cancer Institute noth- ing has been done, although $',85,000,- 000 was appropriated to the Insti- tute, to carry out "the first steps to be •taken to realize the discovery of an important cause of lung cancer."- In other words, the true relation- ship of smoking and lung cancer, if any, has not yet been determined,, much less madp-muhlie