Tobacco Documents Online

Should the government take some kind of ac- ' ' ~', years has campalgne(I vigorously against cig- tion to discourage smoking of cigarets? This is one of the major.questions before the Surgeon . General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, which has just embarked on a study of all available scientific data on the effects of : smoking on human health, ~ 1: Killed in the Nebraska Legislature Tuesday was' a bill which would-require that cigarets s~ "sold in the state be labeled hazardous to human -health. Reports were that the proposal had at= tracted wide-spread attention. Nebraska also receives a sizeable amount of revenue from the sales tax that is now imposed on cigarets. : At stake in the Public Health Service study is the well-being of an $8 billion industry which utilizes a major agricultural product and yields $3 billion a year in federal and state tax reve• nues. I At stake also is the peace of mind of 65 million habitual smokers In the United States who seem unable or unwilling to give up cigr aret smoking despite mounting evidence that it -has something to do with the Incidence of lung cancer,, other respiratory diseases and heart trouble. : After publication of a report on the question :by Royal College of Physicians last March, Great Britain imposed restrictions on cigaret advertising and ordered removal of cigaret vending machines from places where they would .-be accessible to juveniles. In the United States the only_ governmental action taken against .,cigarets to date has been a ban on distribution of free cigarets to patients in Air Force hos- pitals rind a ban on inclusion of cigarets In _;lunch boxes packed for Air Force personnel on -long flights. Air Force Surgeon GeneraU Oliver K. Niess told a recent meeting of the Associa- tion of Military Surgeons that the Air Force was now educating its people on "the relation- ship between cigaret smoking and lung can- cer, pulmonary diseases and cardiovascular dis- eases." .-The effect of smoking on health is still a matter of scientific controversy, anh it is likely to remain so until the origin of dread diseases like cancer and heart trouble Is fully under- stood. The Public Health Service has stuck to the 1959 'statement of then Surgeon General Leroy E. •Burney that "The weight of evidence .- implicates smoking as the principal ... factor in the increased incidence of lung can- cer." The American Cancer Society for several TZ i I BUTNE Hastings, Nebraska March 22, 1963 - ~ . :~- PPublic Health Servi.c,e~.Study May Shed : . ight on Cigaret Smoking Controversy - t aret smoking, especially among. young people. Mainstay of the cigaret's deferisii is the Scien- 'tific Advisory Board of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, established in 1954 when -..cigaret sales dropped off temporarily in re- sponse to a cancer scare. -: The major evidence against the cigaret is sta- .tistical. A number of studies made over the past 15 years links high mortality, especially from lung cancer, to cigaret smoking. A Public Health Service study of 200,000 World War I veterans showed the lung cancer mortality rate to be 10 times higher for smokers than non- smokers; the more heavily the individual smoked, the more likely he was to be attacked by this disease. The correlation applied solely to cigaret smoking; the mortality rates for cigar and pipe smokers were only sliglltly higher than for non-smokers. Similar results were shown by American Cancer Society studies. ' Some scientists have insisted, however, that statistical correlations do not prove a cause- and-effect relationship. They say that they overlook other factors-previous infections, air pollution,. heredity - which haye also been shown to have a high correlation with lung cancer mortality. Tobacco smoking has been under attack on grounds of health and morals ever since the product was introduced to the civilized world 400 years ago. Kings, popes, muftis and a Rus, sian czar condemned smoking in the 17th cen- tury, But mankind took to tobacco and govern- ments in time began to profit from taxing a booming Industry. Nevertheless, anti-cigaret re- formers in the United States -became influen- tial enough in the late 19th~ and early 20thh centuries to obtain legal bans on the sale of cigarets in as many as 14 states at one time or another. The controversy today differs from that of earlier times in that it is being fought out by means of scientific research, although the argu• ments are still often fraught with emotion and prejudice. Considering man's firm attachment to the smoking habit, it has been suggested that research be directed to locating harmful ingredients and eradicating them from cigarets. Unfortunately, the very ingredients which are Implicated are the ones which contribute most to the satisfactions found in smoking.