Tobacco Documents Online

DICK (SYNC): At best, they're a big help; at worst, terribly misleading. CAMERA MOVES TO MONITOR WITH U.S. MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF GREATEST INCIDENCE OF LUNG CANCER. DICK (VO): For instance, you take a look at some general statistics about smoking and lung cancer and you would get the idek that wherever smokers live, the lung cancer rate is high. Makes sense. But, it isn't so. STATISTICAL READOUTS BY GEORGRAPHIC AREA. DICK (VO): Look at this. From the National Cancer Institute... New Jersey. The petroleum regions...the heavy manufacturing areas...this is where lung cancer is heaviest. Are these the areas where smokers are most likely to live? No, smokers live all over the United States. T1OK 0027331

- 11 - CUT TO INTERNATIONAL GRAPHICS ON MONITOR. DICK (VO): Internationally there are a lot of questions; questions not answered but raised by statistics. MONITOR SHOWS CLOSEUP OF U.S. AND CANADA. STATISTICS SUPER OVER MAP OUTLINES. DICK (VO): The U.S. and Canada have the highest per capita cigarette consumption in the world, but they rank eigth and 15th respectively in lung cancer deaths of males. MONITOR CHANGES TO EUROPE OUTLINE. DICK (VO): Conversely, the United Kingdom, Finland and the Netherlands have lower per capita consumption than the U.S. and Canada, but they have far higher lung cancer death rates. TIOK 0027332

- 12 - SUPER STATISTICS OVER MAP OUTLINES. DICK (VO): Number? Let's take an even closer look. After all, the evidence about smoking and lung cancer depends on numbers. Where do the numbers come from? CAMERA MOVES TO A MONITOR WITH THE FACE OF A PHYSICIAN, A MEDICAL EXAMINER. MEDICAL EXAMINER: We get most of our lung cancer statistics from death certificates...you know, the form that is filled out in the hospital when someone dies. The problem is they're not terribly accurate. A lot of it is based on guesswork. You can't really know the cause of death without an autopsy, and autopsies are performed in relatively few cases -- maybe one in five. DICK, CU. TIOK 0027333

DICK (SYNC): Here's another interesting fact we uncovered on the subject of autopsies and statistics. Can doctors look at a lung and know if the person was a smoker? We put this question to our panel of 1,500 American adults. CAMERA MOVES TO MONITOR SHOWING TEXT OF QUESTION AND BANK OF NUMBERS. NUMBERS TOTAL RAPIDLY SHOWING A LARGE PERCENTAGE WHO BELIEVE DOCTORS CAN LOOK AT A LUNG AND DETERMINE WHETHER THE PERSON SMOKED. DICK (VO): Let's talk to some folks directly and get their answers. CAMERA MOVES TO THE MONITORS WITH THE INDIVIDUAL FACES. A MAN APPEARS. MAN (SYNC): Sure. I understand a smoker's lung gets all black over time. WOMAN IS ON THE NEXT MONITOR. T1OK 0027334

WOMAN (SYNC): That's probably the tar and nicotine you're talking about. Sure, I've seen pictures... I guess. ANOTHER WOMAN. WOMAN (SYNC): Smoker's lungs are definitely blacker... makes sense. DICK, CU. DICK (SYNC): Well, maybe it makes sense because it's been said so often. But that doesn't make it true. Let's look at the Congressional Record, testimony from a pathologist who has looked at thousands of lungs. . . CAMERA MOVES TO MONITOR WHERE THESE WORDS ARE DISPLAYED. TIOK 0027335

PATHOLOGIST (VO): It is not possible, grossly or microscopically, or in any other way known to me, to distinguish between the lung of a smoker or a nonsmoker. DICK (VO): At the same hearing, another expert said: NEW TEXT DISPLAYED ON MONITOR. EXPERT (VO): I would estimate that of a thousand pathologists in this country 998 would say, 'I could not tell' and two would say 'I could tell' and that those two who could tell either had some divine intuition or were not telling the truth. DICK, WALKING BEHIND CONSOLE. DICK (SYNC): Pretty strong words. TIOK p02733b ~

DICK SITS DOWN. MONITORS IN BKG. DICK (SYNC): Well what have we found so far? We started by agreeing that most people believe cigarette smoking causes cancer...but we found that some scientists aren't so sure... CUT TO MONITOR AND REPRISE FACES OF INTERVIEWEES. THEN CUT TO MONITOR WITH EXPERIMENTAL ANIMAL FOOTAGE. DICK (V0): We found that most people believe that extensive laboratory experiments involving animals is the basis of knowing that smoking causes lung cancer. But we found that just wasn't so either. MS. DICK NEW ANGLE. DICK (SYNC): We found that most people are satisfied that TiOK 0027337

DICK (SYNC): statistics tell the whole story, but we found out that statistics do a better job of raising questions than answering them. DICK, ANOTHER ANGLE. DICK (SYNC): And we found that even the statistics that are being used...well, maybe they're not all that accurate. DICK GETS UP FROM BEHIND THE CONSOLE, WALKS OVER TO A MEDICAL MODEL OF A SET OF LUNGS. DICK (SYNC): Does cigarette smoking cause lung cancer? You may be expecting me to say 'no.' But the answer is. I don't know...no one does. Not the scientists, nor the physicians; not the American Cancer Society nor the American Lung Association. And the people who make cigarettes, they don't know either. TIOK 0027338

DICK, ANOTHER ANGLE. DICK (SYNC): Does that surprise you? Certainly, we've all read that the cigarette industry denies that smoking causes lung cancer. CAMERA MOVES TO MONITORS WITH INDIVIDUAL FACES. A MAN'S FACE FILLS THE SCREEN. MAN (SYNC): The cigarette companies? I've heard they say that smoking definitely doesn't cause lung cancer, or anything else for that matter. A WOMAN APPEARS. WOMAN (SYNC): No. The cigarette companies believe their products do not cause lung cancer. What do you expect them to say? DICK, CU. TIOK 0027339

DICK (SYNC): Well, let's hear what the cigarette companies do say. Let's go to Washington and hear from the chairman of The Tobacco Institute, the organization which represents tobacco companies. Horace Kornegay. CAMERA MOVES TO MONITOR WITH KORNEGAY. KORNEGAY (SYNC): We don't know, nobody does. But, as an industry, we've spent more than any non-governmental agency trying to f ind out, more than the American Cancer Society and Lung Association combined. We have one position and that's all: there is a clear need for answers and carefully conducted medi=al research is the only way we're going to get answers. KORNEGAY, DIFFERENT ANGLE. KORNEGAY (SYNC): We do know that a lot of folks feel that all T1OK 0027340