Tobacco Documents Online

F. . . - --... . . .. .-... . . . 'tI-1$sI IM E:S SXTUFCD .Al`i FE's4~'.[aJA R:Y . i f 99 -; Alexander Chancellor ~ in New YOrk  Behind every seemingly futile piece of medical research lurks some vested commercial interest t makes no sense to me. Why should a man with a bald patch on the top of his head be any more likely to have a heart anack than anybtrdy else? Nesirthel= research pub- lished this week in the Journal of the Amerixn Medical Association wnufld have us believe that men under 55 suffering from "vertex baldness", which means baldness on top rath- er than at the front of the head (where you can be hairless vdth impunity), run ~ an unusually high risk of heart disease. The balder you ar, the greater the aick. Ifyou at2 only moderately bald, like the Prince of Wales, the risk is about 40 per cent greater than if you have a full head of hair. But if you are really vtry bald indeed. the risk can be as much as 340 per cent higher. To help you wxtrk out how much you axe at tisk, the Journat of the American Medical Associ- ation published a table showing the Hamiiton Baldness Scale, a collection of 24 numbered drawings showing different kinds and degrees of hair lo.r.w. As health scares go, this one is particularly unpleasant. Not only is it cruel to bald people, who may already be slightly depressed about theiraandi- tion. partiasiariy in the middte of a freezing winter, it • also describes a risk which no- body can do any- thing to prevent. If you accept the studies that haat linked heart r.its- `1`his most recent health scare is especially cruel to balding people ~ ease to high blood prz..oure, ~ tobauxo, or choles-tevl, you ' can at teast give up drinking or eating or amokinp„ if you so desire. But you can't gi+re up being bald, at least nat at the drop of a hat Baldness is a tnrtdition for which there is still no certain .Itre. So one is bound to wonder why anybody should want to publish such findings, and to wonder evert more what could have made any- body want to embark in the first place on such a welyd and apparently futile piece of researclt. The answer to that qurs- [ion is that behind almast every medicd study of this nature theae can be found lurking some commercial intesest The research link- ing baldness to heart attark; was carried out by the Boston C7nivessity School of Public Health, but it ^.vas paid for by the Upjohn Company of Kalamazoo, Miehigan. And what dces the Upjohn Company doT it manufactures a hair-growth stimulant r:cllcd minoxidfl, which it markets under the name of Rogaine. .1coording to 'Ihe New York Times, "Upjohn was concerned about the poss'i- bihty of reports of adverse effects like heart attacks anrons; minosidil users, and then [tried{ to determine whether such cardiac pmir le'ms reflected use of the rnedication ora gene.ral risk factor." Why the company ghrynld have ncen con- cemed atunat non-existcnt r:;pc,rt> was nut explamrcd, hut aynr gcts tiv: Eenesnl idea. T'he aint of the nr searr-h s3wnsorevi by l.tp- ji-ahn was tn prove, if {xx~cibte, that if minoxiaii users wrre by any chance more likely to get heart attacks than people who didn't use it. this would not he IxK_ause the medicine it.,eif had harmful sideeffects, but because the people who used it wero bald. So in order to prntert the reputation of mirtozidil (a reputation which nobody has ehatllengexE), people with bald patches on their iaead.s have been needlessly alarmed. The opposite nf this situa- tion wa.s described two weeks aga an The Wall Street lournal in an amc3e a ut eCounc or'1 n- lts headquarters in New York 'Chis was a long invcstigative piece about the skill and tenacity wittt which, for almost 40 yeasc„ this research organisation, heavily funded by the to- baceo ctrmpanies, has sought to cast doubt on every bit of evidence linking _ smoking to ill health. The Wat( Street Journal described Che work of the o.^.'¢en- sibly indepen- dent council as "the longest-run- ning mLsintor- ination cam- paign in LJS busenc.^su history". Although staffed by reputabEe, even illustrious saenusts. [he Kr!urnal said, it had iung hx'En closely unked to a public rclaionl tsrm C.,11leeF 1101 and (';nowltr,n. whictt had published such neKVS itesn.s as "Lung can- ce.ts found in non-smr,king nuns", and hetpr.l authors preiduce ;rooks with tidc`, like ,tirrsaka ti'ithatL.. Feac and {Gzr ,1 heud and ,4m,o.ke. Dcspite the Journal's harsh condemnation of the Couracil ft:rr Tobacco F?e- sean:h. I feel almost sorry for it. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the . search for good nevs about smoking, and yet it has completely lost the pn:pa. ganda war. Although then: are stilf people who wdil tell you that tlte air in New York is ra polluted that simply living hene is eluivalent to smok- ing three pacF:ets of ;;ga- rettes a dav, it is now vir- tually impossible to find anybody who does not beiieve that smoking is very bad for you. However questionable sonte of i9s assertions, the Council for Tobacco Re• search does at least offer some support and comfon to the unfortunate Ameri- can smoker who is other- wise constantly hara.sjYsrd and abused. Anxiety, after all, is bad for you ttur, and the asuna3 ie at leas2 wagsng war against that particular ailment Isn't that Fxr- haps more virtuous than terrorising the bald?