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Mostly sunny tQdayi purt-' ~ ly" cloudy Monday. Highs In th_~ low to mid-80s. Lows mostly low 70s. (Details, Page 2A.) SATURDAY'S TEMPERATURES, 7 n.m. cB Noon ea c p m 7n . ~ a.m. 70 2 p.m. H1 I E p.nt 76 ,10 a.m.76 , 1 p.m, 80 10 p.m•)6 .. . D ® . :1''ir0l Gf'a: ,tieYieB I3y hRANK GftEVC . nerald Wa~hlnqion Dur.au . WASHINGTON, - Only elght, years ago, Congress was so optimis- tic abou4 ctring cancer that it or- dered "a national cancer crusade to I ~, . . j Copyriph('D1971 Tht Mlnml R.rald,; ing 'warnings that' saccharin, eggs,, "cured" 'from '.1950-59 to 4b; per barbecued meats and promiscuity . cent for 1967-73. may cause cancer. But the body count bnsedbn rhor-', .As for the frontal assault against 'tality is even less encouraging.-In.: smoking, 22 years of battle haven't 1950,.125 persons hi every 100;000-- appreciably weakened the tobacco .'died of cancer, In 1975 the number industry, and soaring lung cancer was 131. ' rates have all• but wiped out gains - The tripling since 1950' of limg• ~ be accomplished by 1976 as an ap-. :' a against other forms of the disGase. ' cancer; one of the leust;.curable ' propriate commemoration of the toward conquering this dread dis- , conceded ' - Dr. ' Donald Kennedy, ,. forms of the disease, distorts these .; 200th anniversary of the, Indepen- ease." Nixon declared. •. commissioner df~the Food -and Drug • EVEN THE "body count" in the statistics and understates -the'treal dence of our country.", . , Today, $4.7 billion later, the can-1 Administration: : ' cancer war is debated. The Ameri-. . but limited pl-ogress that has been.., President Richard Nixon, acting cer crusade seems less like a moon= . The search for a "magic bullet" . can Cancer Society (ACS), which made, cancer researchers polnt•out. : upon thttt optimism in his 1971 shot and more like. the- Vietnam. drug cure that would make cancer, likes to emphasize progress, mea-- They also argue that comparing `, State of the Union address, added v,ar: 'I'he enemy has protfed more go the way of polio has ended with' sures'success by five-year survival' the wat on catlcer to Vietnam Is un-'t. $100 million to tile 1972 budget for. t.vlly than expected, and,scientific' the acknowledgement that cancer is ~'rates. If a victim Is alive and symp- fair - that the United States spent ~ cancer research and promised more. .•researchers{ess scientific. I a family of more than 100 diseases, tom-free five years after cancer is .$118 billion in Indochina, but only "The time has conte in America. I ,. , ,• •., -. ; ' , : each distinctive enough to defy any' detected, the cancer society consjd- $7 billion; since 1967, on ctlncer• •„ when the same sort of concentrated PREDICTABLY, ,"'['he , more{'sin6letreatmente ers him cured. And the body count, they say,.also ' effort that~spiit the atom and took money we spend, the more complex :. Headlines promising break-'" ;);ven by this,neasure progress Is.' is noncomparable: 46,370 Ameri- -- man to the moon should be turned 'the problem (seems) to , appear,":, throughs have given way to confus- achingly slow. -= front 39.per cent cans died in 14 years of Vietnam,.' '. :346.:Pzig,es 1., . . I'I (ll-i'l~r.'s Coni:Plete 1lfetospaPer,.. .~ ~ /l Lntln Amcrlcan l=dltlon IS Publlahed Dally

Tilt C Wil p',K• • . -, l. 0-'1'~.~a r . cat,s(:".::. National Cancer Institute . Appropriations 1969 ..1970 1971:r,. 1972• 1973 , 1 974- ~ 1975-' 1976 , 1977„' •1978, : $185 million $190-million $230 million $379•million $492 million $551 million ''.$692 million $762 million ~ • $815 million '(estimated) , ,. $867.million wh(le 382,000 Amerlcans died of cancer last year alone. : . NL'VLRTIiLLL.SS, this ,Isn't'the Turn to Page 20A Col. 1., .' ~.; ~__ ------ ----- ----- FffOM PAGE I A kind of news that taxpayers and contributors to the cancer society paid to hear. In response, Congress has cut the once lavish flow of money to anti-cancer agencies to a cautious, cost-of-living-increase trickle. Investigative hearings are expected later this year into the op- <•rations of the National Cancer In- stitute (NCI), thC' leading federal ,rgency in the cancer war. Even the basic strategy of fight- ing cancer by concentrating on cure and treatment is under challenge. Growing numbers of scientists and congressmen want major new emphasis on preventing cancer by lighlcr control on environmental and workplace pollutants, smoking, diet and anything else that may cause the disease. Others say this idea is a folly, bred of iiupatieuce, and likely to pro~•e tlte inost expensive boondog- gle of the Lrusade- 11tEANW1ilt.E, everyone admits the dream of conquering cancer witlr a big fast dose of biomedical research was naive and unfortu- nate. VGS(.C.99CaVZ "Inevitably, the new, major ini- tiatives by the White Ilouse and Congress carried with them the dangers of overexpectancy and ov- erpromise," conceded Dr, Frank Rauscher, former director of the National Cancer Institute and now senior vice president of the Ameri- can Cancer Society. Although the cancer society would like to claim it played no part in overselling the curability of cancer to Congress, Nixon and the public, that's simply untrue. The former president was goaded In a widely reprinted full-page netvspa- per ad in 1969 that proclaimed: "Mr. Nixou: You can cure cancer." It quoted Dr. Sidney Farber, past president of the cancer society: "We are so close to a cure for can- cer. We lack only the kind of money and comprehensive planning that went into putting a man on the moon." IN 1971, cancer 'society President Dr. li. Marvin Pollard used the same moonshot analogy at a con- vention of science writers. It even turned up in Ann Landers' advice column. "If this great country of ours can put a man on the moon, why can't we find a cure for cancer?" Landers asked rhetorically in April 1971, as the landmark Cancer Act was being debated in Congress. Warning that "the funds designated for medical research in America are grossly in- adequate," Landers, a member 'of the cancer society, urged her read- ers "to play, your part" by writing their senators in support of the war against the disease. When Nixon pitched for cancer' research in his State of the Union message, he acted at the urging of pharmaceuticals titan Elmer Bobst, a $63,000 contributor to the Nixon campaign and former chairman of the cancer society. The'reason be- hind the pressure was that Nixon had cut cancer research funds by three per cenl in 1970.- Ignored in tlie drum-beating for a cancer cure were cell research sci- entists, like Nobel laureate James Watson, who warned that scientists knew too little about how" normal cells work to try to understand and kill abnormal cancer cells. Using everyone's favorite space simile, Watson likened the cancer crusade to "trying to put a man on the moon in 1920 before missiles were invented ... (by giving) con- tracts to cannon manufacturers," ladder builders, and many, many administrators ... but (with) no support for missile research." SUCII OBJECTIONS were dis- missed at the time as jealous nega- tivism, and Congress eagerly en- dorsed the National Cancer Act of. 1971. Hustled through the White House by Dec. 23, in time for pre- sentation as a natibnal Christmas gift, the act made the National Can- cer Institute something like the Na- tional Aeronautics and Space Ad- ministration (NASA) - a goal-ori- ented agency responsible directly to the president. As it turned out, Nixon never got much credit for leading the cancer crusade because Congress always increased the big cancer institute budget increases lie proposed. With the generosity came pres- sure for results. By definition, that meant a cure for cancer, either a vaccine that would prevent the dis- ease or a treatment that would stop it cold. In the early 1970s, many scien- tists believed cancer was caused by viruses altering cells. So the biggest' grants went to research on viruses, more than $400 million to date. BUT TODAY few scientists think viruses cause cancer in humans. A 1974 investigation of the viral research program reached the same conclusion that Watson had prediot- ed: So little is known about how cells work that "it is difficult to be- certain where to begin, much less _organize a focused attack," ' The writer, Dr. Norton Zinder, a Rockefeller University virologist, disclosed another effect of the sud- den, massive funding: Research management at the National Cancer Institute had gone ltaywire- Zinder and his investigators found that cancer institute scien- tists "tended to delegate study of scientific problems to friendly col- leagues." Review of contracts was characterized as "a farce." Specifi- cally, "no hard questions were asked about the scientific contents of the proposal, the past productivi- ty of the contractor or the program relevance. The budget was not even tnrnlinn •rl, lot alone an,tlyzed." found that some cancer institute scientists single-handedly had pro- posed, reviewed and approved con- tracts for assistance on their own projects by outside researchers who were close friends. Dr. Zinder deemed the practice "embarrassing, if not illegal." Cluntly speaking, Zinder was suggesting that conflicts of interest abounded in cancer research. Dr. Arthur Upton, appointed di- rector of the institute by Pt-esident Carter, conceded it is still possible for an NCI scientist "to arrange a contract to support his buddies, if you will, and at the same lime ex- tend his own research operation." Dr. Upton said lie is putting a stop to the practice, as well as winding- down virus research, which is still costing about $100 million a year. RCSEARCH boondoggles weren't the only problem created for the Natioual Cancer Institute 'by the crusad.e windfall. Under the Cancer ~ Act, the research-oriented institute had to develop 19 regional compre- hensive cancer centers. The centers, popular with Congress, were to provide the best cancer treatment possible all across the country, to stress research in drug, radiology and surgical treatments, and to pro- mote any advances throughout the' medical World. As they have evolved, these re- gional centers have much to do with treating cancer patients but little to do with cure-oriented re- search or prevention. This year, they will cost the cancer institute more than $170 million, an expense that has provoked an angry rivalry between basic researchers and can- cer doctors. Dr. Carrol M. Williams, a l-Iar- vard biologist, gives one side of the argument, his excess fueled by his passion: "The money spent for just one tenuinal cancer (patient) today could fund a whole laboratory's re- search into the real fundamental questions we must answer before we can make any measureable progress against cancer." T1IL OTHER half of the argu- ment conies from Dr. Ned I torn- back, chairman of the Cancer Radi- ation Department at Indiana Uni- versity Medical School: "What do ( W\ ca~- c r ~

we do with the cancer patients now, tell them to come back in 20 years when we have a cure? Tell them not to bother us because we're busy in tbe lab?" These two urgent priorities, treatment and cure, still dominate the philosophy - and the budget = of the National Cancer Institute. They all but squeeze out the agen- cy's third mission: the prevention of cancer. If the cancer crusade loses,its sta- lus as a holy war, it will happen on the prevention battlefield. Cure and treatment have no enemies, preven- Lion has plenty of them. _ ON ONE hand, tobacco interests stoutly resist efforts to make people stop smoking, though most re- searchers outside the tobacco indus- try say smoking is linked to 35 to 40 per cent of all cancer deaths. ' On the other hand, wheq cancer crusaders attack industrial polluters and food processors, their evidence is weaker. The research linking specific food additives and pollu- tants to cancer is far less convinc- ing than tite research indicating that smoking causes cancer. Nonetheless, the prevention bat- tle is on. Joseph Califano, Secretary of liealth, Education and Welfare (IIEW), signalled that in January when lie declared war on smoking_ In the coming months, regulatory agencies will propose tighter re- strictions on all industrial chemicals and pollutants suspccted of being cancer-causers. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to fol- low suit on food additives and drugs. DESPITE the lack of absolute proof, many scientists agree with federal regulators who today say that most human cancer is environ- mentally related, a tricky term that extends to cigaret smoking and die- iary factors. The theory is, as Dr. Upton of the National Cancer Institute puts it, that "the human population is ex- posed to a sea of carcinogenic fac- tors, acting in combination - most of them weak carcinogens, but act- ing in complicated mixtures." ~ 009eq%V85% 0% Lacking 'good evidence "that there's a zero-risk level of safe ex- posure," Upton continued, "the pru- dent posture is to reduce the level of exposure wherever possible." Regulators at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration OStIA ~ the Environmental Protec- ) .----- tion Agency (EP)k),' and the Con- sumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) want to do just that. They propose a new system of uniform -tests, risk classification and expo- sure limits for at least 258 common- ly used chemicals suspected of being the most potent cancer-caus- ers. i ~ ' APPALLED BY the potential eco- nomic impact on their business, more than 250 industries and trade associations have submitted briefs opposing the first such major pro- posal. Ninety of the biggest firms, mostly chemical manufacturers, have contributed more than $1 mil- lion to fight the regulations through a new association, the American In- dustrial Health Council. If the regulators go into battle with insufficient evidence, it's part- ly due to the low priority historical- ly given cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute. The insti- tute has fewer than a dozen skilled epidemiologists, and bioassay re- search has serious manpower prob- . . lems too. - In a, 1976 resignation letter, Dr. Umberto Saffiotti, ' head of the bioassay project at the cancer insti- tute, wrote: - "There are now over 200 (experi- mental) results still waiting to be reviewed and published, while no substantial supportive staff is pro- vided ... I cannot accept any longer a situation which in fact deprives the regulatory agencies, industry, labor, consumers and the scientific community of data of urgent public health value." SINCE Saffiottti's resignation, the cancer institute has sought to speed the release of bioassay results through a committee of researchers, public health scientists and industry experts on occupational safety. About 100 cases in the backlog have been cleared for release. When regulatory hearings begin in May, the tobacco industry will side with the government in favor of tighter control of industrial can- cer causers. Other industries will counter that if the governnient goes after their products, it will neglect the larger, proven hazard of tobac- co. .. So the question becomgs: What has the National Cancer Institute, as the government's main anti-can- cer agency, done about smoking? "The ACS and the NCI have both done as much as they could," said Dr. Rauscher, who has served as a toj) executive in both organization. Once the agencies established the link between smoking and cancer, he said, it was up to the public to "either accept the data or reject it." (NEXT: As the American Cancer Society goes, so goes the federal cancer war. Why? ' I