Tobacco Documents Online

4aew.s from the ~ATIO~AL RESEARCH COUNCIL The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 in order to provide for a broader participation by American scientists and engineers in the workk of the Academy. The Academy was chartered by the L'.S. Congress in 1863 as a private organization with a responsibility for examining questions of science and technology at the request of the Federal Government. The National Academy of Engineering was organized in 1964 under the original NAS chaj ter. The National Research Council now serves as the agent of both Academies in the conduct of studies and investigations in the public interest. 2101 CONSTITUTION AVENUE, N.-*N'.. 'WASHINGTOl\, D.C. 20418 AREA CODE 202 EX 3-8100 Date: September 16, 1982 Contact: Gail Porter or Barbara JorgensQn, (202) 334-2138 - SMOKERS STILL BEST ADVISED TO QUIT ENTIRELY RESEARCH COUNCIL COMMITTEE REPORTS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WASHINGTON - A National Research Council committee, asked to identify behavior ehanges.that might reduce the health risks of cigarette smoking, has found no alternative short of stopping smoking entirely that can offer unqualified health benefits to smokers. The committee concluded* that evidence of health benefits from switching to reduced tar and nicotine cigarettes is "doubtful," and that not enough is known about the health effects of switching to other alternatives, such as cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco, or snuff, to draw conclusions about comparative risks. Cutting down on the number of cigarettes smoked or changing brands may lower health risks, but the committee stressed that any actual reduction depends on the amount of smoke inhaled, the number of puffs per cigarette, and how far down the cigarettes are smoked. After cutting back on the number of cigarettes smoked or switching to a reduced tar and nicotine brand, it explained, smokers may unconsciously change how they smoke to maintain their intake of nicotine. (OVER) *Copies of the committee's report, Reduced Tar and -Nicotine Cigarettes: Smoking Benavior anu Health, are available for $3.95 (prepaid) from the National Academy Press at the letterhead address. Reporters may obtain copies from the Office of Information, also at tne letterhead address. TIMN 308058

, i -2- The committee emphasized that the tar and nicotine levels printed on cigarette packs do not represent a smoker's actual exposure. Smokers can draw "roughly similar" amounts of tar and nicotine from cigarettes with "quite different" measured tar and nicotine ratings. "Smokers who want to reduce the health hazards from their cigarettes," the committee concluded, "are best advised to quit smoking entirely." STEADY INCREASE IN CANCER DEATf-:S The committee founa that while average tar and nicotine levels in cigarettes fell by about half between 1955 and 1975 (the most recent year for which complete data were available), aeaths from respiratory system cancers increased by about 70 percent during this period. Male smokers aged 35 or older, said the committee, were actually more likely to die or' respiratory system cancers in 1975 than smokers of the same age during 1955. The committee reached this conclusion by comparing estimates of the total number of cigarettes smoked by U.S. men during their lifetimes, with the number of men who died from respiratory system cancers during the same period, 1955-1975. The resulting index (attached) charts the number of cancer deaths per one billion packs of cigarettes smoked for five-year age groups from 35 to 65. For example, in 1955, 52 men aged 45-49 died from respiratory system cancers for each billion packs smoked up to that year. In 1975, 85 men in tnis age group died for each billion packs smoked. Death rates for men in the youngest age groups (35-39 and 40-44) leveled off or declined slightly only as'ter 1970. (The committee's analysis applies only to men because similar data on women are not availaDle.) Tne reason for this "sutistantial and unexpected" increase is unknown, the committee said. However, it said that possible explanations include: changes in smoking behavior following reductions in tar and nicotine levels such as smoking more cigarettes or inhaling more smoke; other hazardous substances in cigarettes such as carbon monoxide or hydrogen cyanide, which might offset the benefits of less tar and nicotine; the combined effect of the "decades-long" delay in cancer development and the rapid increase in the number of heavy smokers prior to 1955; or the possibility that cigarette smoke may act synergistically with other health hazards such as air pollution. _ (MORE) TIMN 308059

-3- 11we are left with the conclusion," wrote the committee, "tnat, at least tnrough 1975, cigarettes had not become appreciably lesss hazardous for men with respect to the ag6reaate risk of oeatn from [respiratory system cancers] between ages 35 and 65." It is too early to tell, it added, whether men who did not begin smoking until 1965, after most of the tar and nicotine reductions had been made, will have reduced health risks. It is also too early, the committee said, to judge the impact of recent increases in sales of brands with less than 5 milligrams tar and 0.5 milligrams nicotine. Population studies of the health effects of cigarettes with lower tar and nicotine levels have yielded conflicting results, the committee noted. Most studies that showed lower risks, it explained, have compared only smokers who smoked approximately the same number of cigarettes each day. However, the committee said that these results can be misleading if--as more recent studies suggest--smokers who switch to reduced tar and nicotine brands acually smoke more cigarettes or smoke them diff'erently. . AlLhoubh tne committee focussed on respiratory system cancers, it noted that caraiovascular disease is an even larger risk to smokers. Studies of cardiovascular risk in re.iation to reauced tar and nicotine have produced somewhat conflicting results, but generally do not support reduced hazards for lower tar and nicotine cigarette smokers, the committee said. The committee's study was funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse as part of a larger project to identify factors common to a wide range of habitual behaviors including smoking, drug abuse, and alcohol consumption. The committee focused on reduced tar and nicotine cigarettes, because this approach has "unquestionably been the major direction of consumer interest,•commercial development, and governmental activity in this country in the past 25 years." According to the most recent Federal Trade Commission data (1979), reduced tar cigarettes (below 15 milligrams tar) account for about 41 percent of the cigarettes sold in the Unitea States and for about 67 percent of cigarette manufacturers' advertising dollars. (OVER) TIMN 308060

-4- RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS To provide persistent smokers with a "clearer set of choices," the committee recommended a number of areas for future research including: development of standardized cigarettes for researcn; refinement of' techniques for measuring body levels of nicotine, gases, and key residues; studies that establish behavior patterns for different kinds of smokers; smoking-machines that vary parameters such as length and volume of puffs; and studies to establish more firmly the relationship between nicotine and cigarette adaiction. The Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior is chaired by Louis C. Lasagna, department of pharmacology ana toxicology, University of Rochester. Otner memDers of' the committee are: Howard S. Becker, department of sociology, Northwestern University; Peter Dews, department of psychiatry and laboratory of psychobiology, Harvard Medical School; John L. Falk, department of psychology, Rutgers University; Daniel X. Freedman, department of psychiatry, University of Chicago; Jerome H. Jaffe, University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Veterans Administration Hospital, Newington, Conn.; Denise B. Kandel, department of psychiatry, Columbia University, and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York City; John Kaplan, School of Law, Stanford University; Gardner Lindzey, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Calif.; Gerald McClearn, College of Human Development, Pennsylvania State University; Charles P. O'Brien, Drug Dependence Treatment Service, Veterans Administration Hospital, Philadelphia; Judith Rodin, department of psychology, Yale University; Stanley Schachter, department of psychology, Columbia University; Thomas C. Schelling, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Richard L. Solomon, department of psychology, University of Pennsylvania; Frank Stanton, formerly president, Columbia Broadcasting System, New York City; Albert M. Stunkard, department of psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Hospital; and Richard F. Thompson, department of psychology, Stanford University. Dean Gerstein and Peter Levison of the Research Council's Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education served as study directors. gp: 1,5,10,11,e,f TIMN 308061