Tobacco Documents Online

~. , Secretary Flemming was asked about governmental during,a panel-type radio interview. .1 :., Radio Reports, Inc. December 13, 1959' deal of this disapproval?".• FLEMMIVG:•. "This is a very good question and points up the relationship of the Department and'particularly the Public Health Service to cigarettes off the market. They are not a part of the authority.' should say first of all that we do not have and authority to take what is certainly a very controversial issue. I would say -,--I that is vested in the Food and Drug Administration." QUESTION: "Who has authority over tobacco?" FLEMMING: ."Well, no one has authority to take it off the market, and of food which includes a substance that may induce cancer. food item without realizing that he is possibly buying an item as to find its way into a food item, there isn't anything the consumer can do about it by himself. He goes in andibuys the situations. After a11, if a substance is used in such a manner realize that really we're dealing with two different types of ; I think if we stopped to analyze the situation, we can't help but in the opposite direction. that smoking is a factor in lung cancer, and other studies pointing have been made in this area, some studies pointing to the fact article which I think sum:narized very effectively the studies that published in~the Journal of the American Medical Association an the smoking issue. Just a few weeks ago the Surgeon General of the United States, who is the head of the Public Health Service, Now you asked why in effect we hadn't taken a position relative to one is required by the necessities of life to purchase cigarettes' . "Now as far as smoking, or as far as cigarettes are concerned, no „ ican people and to prevent disease. one objective in life, and that is to protect the health of the Amer- ing those conclusions from a man and from a service that has just the Surgeon General states conclusions of that kind, they are receiv- I think the American people should keep in mind the fact that when but in my judgment he did the right thing in stating his conclusions. regarding this matter. He has been attacked for his conclusions, ' "The Public Health Service has an obligation to identify a public health issue of this kind. It has an obligatioh to present the facts as it sees them to the public. And then at the conclusion of this article, the Surgeon General stated his own conclusions

"Now he identified the fact that there has been a sharp incidence I feel they are entitled to a great deal of respect." _ _. ,. stating in just as frank a manner.as he could his conclusions, andd admire him for stating his conclusion, and on the basis of my own conclusions only after careflzlly balancing the evidence and then tributing factor to this increase in lung cancer is smoking. I, on the basis of all of the evidence, possibly the principal con- in relation to the population -- and he arrived at the conclusion in lung cancer -- that is, an increase in the number of of cases QUESTION: "Mr. Secretary, if it is proven that cancer is caused in -part by cigarettes, do you feel that there should be an authority in the government which has the power to take such a hA=~ui product off "' the market?" FLEIWIIMIlNG: "No, as I've already indicated, I feel that the situation is quite different, because of the fact that the American people, as those facts. But then it weems to me that the American people have clusions of a service such as the Public Health Service, based on I've indicated, are entitled to the facts, and they're to the con- the right to analyze the facts, analyze the conclusions of the Surgeon General, and then make their owndecision as to what they are Surgeon General, and the conclusions of others who differ from the going to do."' d