Tobacco Documents Online

): ...... ..a.~l.l.. ..._.~.ulJ a......... l.,.L. -5- smoking, as well. We included the industry's standard point that their smoking habits are not the only relevant differences between smokers and non-smokers. We also introduced the thought that it is harmfully stressful to the active smoker to be constantly told smoking is self destructive; and the thought that smoking cessation may have a placebo effect. These latter points were original thinking with me, although experience has taught me that what one believes to be original is sometimes unconscious recall of unoriginal ideas. The authors declined to reply to this letter and the editor added a footnote pointing-up their failure fo].ders. to With regard I should mention publish, because it. It could be benefits smoking accept that opportunity. Our letter in the to the placebo effect of smoking cessation, another point we have not even tried to I have not yet figured out how to document part of the real explanation of the cessation appears to confer. Experienced doctors and nurses will tell you that some patients have a strony,er_ w, to live than others that is not always recognizable in interviews. I believe a climate has been created in which infiividuals_with a strong_will to_ live _are___, more likely to give up smoking than those whose will to live is weaker. We have also published a Letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, seizing another opportunity to present the same defense for active smoking that appeared in our ~ N W C Ci m W F+ ~ >

.:.:ss..._.._......... ._ ., ., _. . L. -lo- Youthful Predictors of Premature Mortality. The second is tentatively called Temperament and Other Factors Relating to Premature Mortality. Unfortunately the principal investigator on the first study is known to be a slow publisher even under ordinary circumstances; and two special events have had a retarding effect. One of his co-investigators died in an accident; and he left Johns Hopkins to accept a full professorship at Columbia. I cannot tell when the write-up of this study will be submitted. Hopefully it will be before the end of this year and publication before the end of next year. The second study will differ from the first mainly by incorporating information acquired after the subjects' left school. While it was started a year later than the first, it has a different principal investigator who is not distracted by a new post. It may be ready to be submitted for publication before the end of this year. Our largest funding to date, $5 million of endowment grants over five years, has gone to the Behavioral Medicine Resear.ch Center of Duke University, headed by Dr. Redford Williams. Dr. Williams is an aggressive champion of the idea that psychosocial factors have a profound influence on survival. He emphasizes that individuals who react to life experiences with hostility and cynicism are prone to premature mortality. He is now in the early stages of a major mortality study that will include a lot more psychosocial data than the Cancer Society studies have ?17 0 N Ca ~ C.~ m N N ;