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About Eugene register-guard. (Eugene, Or.) 1930-1983 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1962)
EUGENE REGISTER-GUARD, Sunday, Oct. 21, 1962 Page 3D Does Tobacco Smoke Kill, Cripple or Just Pacify? Panel of Experts Will Launch Exhaustive Study EDITOR'S NOTE Three years ago the U. S. Public Health Service advised Amer icans that the surest way to avoid lung cancer was to quit smoking. This added new fuel to an already-raging tobacco vs.i cancer controversy. The Surgeon General has now decided to appoint a panel of eminent scientists to deter mine whether the original statement should be real firmed, modified, or com pletely wilhdraum. Vital health and economic issues hinge on the outcome. By DAVID D. LEWIS Of the United Pres. International WASHINGTON The chief government guardian of na tional health is about to jump into one of the medical profes sion's long unsettled debates the controversy over whether tobacco smoke kills, cripples or just pacifies humans. Surgeon General Luther L. Terry of the U. S. Public Health Service (PHS) is expected to name very soon an expert panel to make a full investigation of all previous data concerning the relationship of smoking to health problems, including whether it causes lung cancer. He has said the group also will look at other possible Parents Sue Drug Firm NEW YORK WV-The Long Island parents of twins have begun a $2.2-million law suit against a German pharmaceuti cal firm, claiming their chil dren were born deformed be cause the mother took some of the sedative drug thalidomide while pregnant. Tuck Harvey, 26, claimed in an affidavit that his son Noren was born with defective, de formed and shortened arms and his daughter Bivenne, suffered internal deformities and a mal formed thumb. The husband said his wife used the drug after it was pre scribed by her physician to help overcome insomnia while preg nant. The twins were born at North Shore Hospital, Manhasset, N. Y., May 18, 1961. health hazards such as automo bile exhaust, industrial smog and other air pollutants. When the new findings are analyzed, this panel, or a new one, will make recommenda tions. Then it will be up to Doctor Terry to decide what action, if any, is warranted. Unbiased Panel The Surgeon General himself will head the study which is being financed by the federal government. The other 11 panel members will represent the whole spectrum of the scientific fields involved. Billed as "unbiased," the panel will be selected from among more than 150 eminent scientists. By mid-October, 10 of the 11 had been chosen, al though it had been expected the group would be at work on the initial six-month phase a month earlier. One FHS official helping to coordinate the selections says "These people had to be like Caesar's wife pure beyond doubt in their lack of bias or any prejudiced notions of the relation of smoking to health. At least, if they had such no tions, they must have kept them quiet." Before invitations to serve on the panel were issued, interest ed parties were allowed to "veto" any candidate for "any reason whatever," the official said. Opinions Gathered Opinions of candidate qualifi cations were solicited from the Tobacco Institute, Inc.; Ameri can Cancer Society, American Heart Assn., American Medical Assn., American College of Chest Surgeons, the National Tuberculosis Assn., the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and President Kennedy's Office of Science and Technology. First phase of the study will investigate "the nature and magnitude of the health haz ard." It will be a purely scien tific review of available data Liquor Sales Gain OLYMPIA (UPD The State Liquor Control Board reports that gross liquor sales totaled $7,797,097 last month compared with $7,692,166 during Septem ber, 1961. and probably will include pub lic hearings. From this will De distilled a philosophy on the smoking health problem attest ed to by the collective profes sional reputation of the ex perts. . The second phase perhaps carried out by a different group and likely to include represen tatives of the President's com mittee, the FDA and FTC will seek to chart a course for the government, the public, the to bacco industry and the medical profession. The problem is fraught with political, economic and social implications, as well as its obvi ous implications to the nation's health. Such statistics as these indicate the breadth of the is sue: There are an estimated 70 million to 100 million tobacco users in the United States. Some experts assert that 75 per cent of all American men and 50 per cent of the women are regular smokers at some time in their lives. The tobacco industry has an estimated annual income of more than $7.5 billion and is a heavy advertiser in the various media of communications. Federal and state income from tobacco taxes runs about S3 billion a year. The economy of six states which are top tobacco producers is materially affected by the in dustry. These are Georgia Ken tucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virgin ia. Fifteen other states are in volved as lesser producers. 17 million Americans de pend on tobacco for all or part of their livelihood, including 800,000 farm families in the 21 producing states. Tobacco is the nation's fourth largest agricultural crop. The debate over the relative danger or benefit of tobacco to mankind has been raging for more than 400 years, from the time smoking was introduced to Western civilization by Spanish explorers of America in the early 1500s. In a report on smoking in re lation to cancer and other dis eases published last March, the British Royal College of Physi cians (RCP) said tobacco almost from the beginning became both very popular and very contro versial. Last month, the U. S. Agri culture Department reported cigarette sales rose 2 per cent in 1962 to an all-time high after a steady rise of 3 or 4 per cent from 1955-1961. The department estimated 1962 production at 538 billion cigarettes, up 11 bil lion, and 7.2 billion cigars, up about 140 million. Other Production Off Other tobacco production In the United States fell oif, how ever, it said. Pipe tobacco pro duction dropped 3 million pounds to 71 million pounds; chewing tobacco fell to a new low of 64.5 million pounds, down about one per cent; and snuff production hit a 47-ycar low at about . 32.8 million pounds, down 3 per cent. Agriculture officials hedged on whether tobacco production would increase again next year. They said a rise seemed like ly in 1963 but that the revival of the debate over the impact of smoking on health might affect the market. Long as the controversy has been underway it has not been until fairly recent years that the U. S. government has stepped in as a debater. Five years ago, then Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney said "The Public Health Service feels the weight of the evidence is in creasingly pointing in one di rection: That excessive smoking is one of the causative factors in lung cancer." Two years later, In a special report on the smoking-health situation in November, 1959, Burney issued a series of state ments which the PHS believed "justified by studies to date." These 1959 statements were: The weight of evidence at present implicates smoking as the principal etiological factor in the increased incidence of lung cancer. , Cigarette smoking particu larly is associated with an in creased chance of developing lung cancer. . Stopping cigarette smoking even after long exposure is beneficial. No method of treating to bacco or filtering the smoke has been demonstrated to be effec tive in materially reducing or eliminating the hazard of lung I cancer. The non-smoker has a low er incidence of lung cancer than the smoker in all controlled studies, whether analyzed in terms of rural areas, urban regions, industrial occupations or sex. . Persons who have never smoked at all (cigarettes, cigars or pipe) have the best chanee of escaping lung cancer. Unless the use of tobacco can be made safe, the individual person's risk of lung cancer can best be reduced by the elimination of smoking. Dr. James Hundley, assistant surgeon general for plans, said recently that the PHS stood by the 1959 statements and would do so until new findings are de veloped. Last April, however, a PHS official said, Surgeon General Terry gave former Health, Ed ucation arid Welfare Secretary Abraham A. Ribicoff a re evaluation of-the Burney report. The official said this re-evaluation never made public was based on new evidence, includ ing the British Royal College re port, the decision of Denmark and Italy to ban cigarette ad vertisements, and other reports by scientists. Sen. Maurine Neuberger, D Ore., Sen. Frank E. . Moss, D Utah, and a number of co-sponsors have introduced a bill which would create a presiden tial commission to do generally the same job as the Surgeon General's panel is intended to accomplish. Numerous studies in recent years have added or detracted from the weight of evidence supporting a smoking - cancer link or a relationship to other disorders, including heart dis ease and respiratory ailments. Among the most recent pro nouncements pro and con were these: Dr. Warren H. Cole, for mer president of the American Cancer Society, said on Sept. 23 at Chicago that 24 studies made since 1950 found "there is a very sharp relationship be tween cigarette smoking and cancer of the lungs." He pre dicted most lung cancer would be eliminated "within 20 years" if people stopped smoking cig arettes. The Tobacco Institue re plied from New York with a statement that "Repetition does not alter the fact that medical science does not know the cause , . . of lung cancer. If Doctor Colo knows what will happen in the field of cancer 20 years from now, he apparently has information not generally avail able." . A group of researchers wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Sept. 24 that filtered cig arette smoke yielded only one- REFINISH YOUR FIRESCREEN MESH SPRAY )00 per BRASS JL con EUGENE third the amount of tar in stan dard cigarette smoke but still enough to cause cancer in some mice. They said each of six brands they studied induced tumors in the mice and some of the Illinois became cancerous. The Tobacco Industry Re search Committee (TIRO chair man, T. V. Hartnctt, replied to the filter-tip report that "Scien tists advise us it is important to note that cancers have been produced in laboratory animals with a number of harmless, everyday substances, including glucose, eggs and medicinal skin creams. It is apparent that ani mal skin painting is not di rectly relevant to the problem of human cancer, particularly lung cancer." Against this backdrop of con troversy, the carefully chosen j scientific panel, guided by the ' nation's chict health officer the Surgeon General will i search for new insight into the i age-old tobacco-health debate. I Record Enrollment McMINNVILLE rtlPD Lln field's record-breaking enroll ment has reached 1,013. POPULAR You will be more popular after a few dance lessoni at the ARTHUR MURRAY DANCE STUDIO 31 WfstKth DI 5-2311 Mr. and Mn. Gregory, License 5-YEAR OR... 50,000-MILE GUARANTEE ON . . . Imperial . chrynlrr Plymouth ValUnl BARKER MOTORS INC. 1050 OUv. Kucene, Or.. 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