Tobacco Documents Online

Des ^lbines, Iow:: TRIl3U1NE December 7, 1967 S. Senator Ervin Speaks I~is Piece a in Defense of lb acca By James K. Batten (Des Molnes TrItiune-Chita9o DaiIY il News.Service) 1VAS11INGTOh; D.C: - Sena-;, tor Sam Ervin (Dem., N:C.),i~l rising in defense of f I e d cigarette , i' n d ustt•y, con. V_ tends that' sci- e n t i sts have failed to prove t h a t smoking causes 1ungV cancer and„ heart disease. z Thie argu- ments, ofl anti- c i g arette cru- saders, he in- SAM ERVIN sisted, fall of their own weight. 1 "They contain little more than, old platitudes, new hyperoble and blatant non.sequiturs - all; based om statistics which are ! either erroneous, irrelevant or', stat6stically misleading," Ervin saidi Research Park Press, Senate Having, done so, Ervin ex- plained, he was convince& that Kennedy, Surgeon Gen. William Stewart and other critics of smoking had failed to make their case. First in a press conference and later on the Senate floor Ervin nuoted •a "Or, in the language of the North Carolina south mountains, I'figgers may not lie, but liars i sure do figger.' And honest men also figger when the crusading spirit burns in their hearts. "It baffles me that some scientists have taken up the cru- series of scientists who disputed sade for cigarette prohibition the eonclusion, that links be-i~ with all the religious fervor of a tween smoking and cancer have~ Carrie Nation. How much, far- been definitely established. I ther we might be today if all One authority cited by Ervin l that combined intelligence, dedt ~' Ication and energy ha&gone (nto i ! was Dr. Joseph. Berkson of thei rrsearc 1 ra icr than p r u p a} Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, whol ganda." was quoted as saying: "Person-, i 1 Unknown Cause ally, all relevam available facts considered', I think it very;' I Ervin emphasized that neither doubtful that smoking causesi I'Ihe nor anyone else knows the " cause of cancer Ile tuote& the lungcancer. i Encyclopedia Britannica: "Can+ I cer is an autonomous new growth of tissue of an unknown basic cause." Those who would indict smok- • Cancer Bulletin I Ervin, said that, the Cancer~ Bulletin( a pubilcatlon, that ac-1 cepts the surgeon general'sI I assertion that smoking causes I ing as the cause of cancer, cancer, calie& Berkson "the! iErvin said, rely heavily on the, deanlof American medical stat- lfac~ that reportcd' deaths from - isticians:" lung cancer have risen sharplyj Spokesmen for Stewart and, as more people have taken up l, Kennedy said the two men smoking. I , Ervin proposed a new cam-I paign to "find the cause and I cure for lung cancer." He sug-; gested that' the research Tri-I ang/e Park in North Carolina; would be an ideal site for such' co-operative research involving government, industry and uni- versities. Ervin, whose state produced 63 per cent of the 570 billion ci>Tarettes: manufactured ini the,United States last year, ex-I'I plained that his presentation to the Senate Monday was in reply to a Sept. 11 spcech.bySenator Robert Kennedy ( Dem , N.Y.). In that speech, to the World Conference on Smoking and Health, meeting in New York, Kennedy charized that '•the cigarette indhstrv is peddling a deatllv weapon. It is dealinain penple's lives for financial gain." The cigaret(e industry and its friend's in Con2ress resnonded with cries of outraee. But Ervin said that he refrained from. commentin at the time, pre-, ferring first to study the smok- ing-and-health controversy in detail. - , - . . . ... _. --.-: v . :1laaRJwir:..i:rar: Jrstr.:+~Yii1~Ji.7 would have no immediate com- ment on Ervin's remarks. In North Carolina, where. Ervin will be running for re- election next year, the tobaccoo indust'ry is an important part of the state's economy. $3 Billion More than 200,000 persons aree employed' in growing tobacco and manufacturing t o b a c c o products. The value of tobacco products manufactured in, North Carolina in 1966 exceeded $3 billion. Ervinwryl,vobserved that he was not contending that "cigarettes are a wonder druq~ I claim only that which i K. A. Brownlee has sa( in us ; article in the American Statis- tical tical Review. That is, at this time the statistics dmnot showw that cigarettes cause human ; disease. Since 1930 But many cases of lung can- cer, Ervin said, once were mis- ti7keniy, diagnosed as tubercu- losis. "And the increase in deaths from lung cancer paral- lels the decrease in d'eaths from respiratory tuberculosis an d pneumonia. Since 1930 diagnostic techniques and the science of pathology ha ve developed to the pointl MhereIiina cancer can be easilyidentificd;" Ervin said that lung cancer is: predominantly a disease of older men; and that life expectancy' has been rising sharply during; the period of increasing pop-+ ularity of cigarettes. ~ Thus, he reasoned, the inci• i dence of lung cancer might be expected to rise in a popula- hon with proportionately more elderly men. I "To reverse the increase in; lung cancer," he concluded, "we must either reduce life ex-I pectancy or we must find the1 I~cause and cure. Cigarette pro-l Ihibition is no answer." i If new research ever does establish a causal link between ~ smoking and cancer„Ervin said„ "then t;overnment, industry andi medicine should be prepared tol begin immediately a co-opera-1. tive search for a safe cig-, arette." ! Tax Incentives That' should be done, he went, on; "through a program of tax. incentives and joint government and ifr*lftry research: Today's scientists are capable of' finding better solutions to problems than by shouting them out of existence."' When asked if he was a smoker, Ervin r e p1 I'e d: "I haven't smoked since 11:20 in the morning on the sixteenth of Vlay„ 1940." At the time, Ervin was a Superior Couft judge in North Carolina and found -I wanted a recess every 15 min- utes so I could smoke a cigarette." Giving up smoking, he added,. "was a great e c o n o m y measure." (CopYri9ht,.19f7)