by Allan Brandt
56 E. Cuyler Hammond, “Classics in Oncology: Remarks on Smoking Evidence and Ethics,” CA-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 38, no. 1 (1988): 59.
57 The National Cancer Institute also conducted an extensive prospective study using U.S. veterans. See Harold F. Dorn, “Tobacco Consumption and Mortality from Cancer and Other Disease,” Public Health Reports 74, no. 7 (1959): 581-593; and Harold A. Kahn, “The Dorn Study of Smoking and Mortality Among U. S. Veterans: Report on Eight and One-Half Years of Observation,” Epidemiological Approaches to the Study of Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases (Bethesda, MD: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, 1966), 1-125.
58 They also considered confounders. See Ernest L. Wynder and Evarts A. Graham, “Etiologic Factors in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma with Special Reference to Industrial Exposures,” Archives of Industrial Hygiene and Occupational Health 4, no. 3 (1951): 221-235; and Ernest L. Wynder to Evarts A. Graham, November 22, 1950, Box 103, Folder 762, Graham Papers.
59 Ernest L. Wynder, “Neoplastic Diseases,” in The Biologic Effects of Tobacco, ed. Ernest L. Wynder (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955), 126; and Ernst L. Wynder, Evarts A. Graham, and Adele B. Croninger, “Experimental Production of Carcinoma with Cigarette Tar,” Cancer Research 13, no. 12 (1953): 855-864.
60 A. H. Roffo, “Tobacco as a Carcinogenic Agent,” Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 63 (1937): 1267-1271; and A. H. Roffo, “Tobacco-Induced Carcinoma in Rabbits,” Bulletin of the Institute of Experimental Medicine for Cancer Research & Treatment 7, no. 24 (1930).
61 Ernst L. Wynder, Evarts A. Graham, and Adele B. Croninger, “Experimental Production of Carcinoma with Cigarette Tar,” Cancer Research 13, no. 12 (1953): 855-864.
62 Evarts A. Graham to Charles S. Cameron, January 7, 1954, Box 3, Folder 26, Graham Papers.
63 Ernest L. Wynder to Evarts A. Graham, June 28, 1954, Box 103, Folder 762, Graham Papers.
64 Ernest L. Wynder to Evarts A. Graham, August 25, 1954, Box 103, Folder 762, Graham Papers.
65 Evarts A. Graham to Alton Ochsner, September 15, 1954, Box 69, Folder 464, Graham Papers.
66 On the history of statistical thinking, see especially Marks, The Progress of Experiment; Lorraine J. Daston, Lorenz Krüger, and Michael Heidelberger, eds., The Probabilistic Revolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987); and Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
67 A. Bradford Hill, “The Clinical Trial,” New England Journal of Medicine 247, no. 4 (1952): 113-119.
68 Peter Vinten-Johansen et al., Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); John M. Eyler, Victorian Social Medicine: The Ideas and Methods of William Farr (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979); Christopher Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick: Britain, 1800-1854 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz, Public Health and the State: Changing Views in Massachusetts, 1842-1936 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972).
69 Rene DuBos, Mirage of Health: Utopias, Progress and Biological Change (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishing, 1959); Thomas D. Brock, Robert Koch, a Life in Medicine and Bacteriology (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1988); and K. Codell Carter, The Rise of Causal Concepts of Disease: Case Histories (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003).
70 See William G. Rothstein, Public Health and the Risk Factor: A History of an Uneven Medical Revolution (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003); and Robert A. Aronowitz, Making Sense of Illness: Science, Society, and Disease (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
71 Jerome Cornfield, “Statistical Relationships and Proof in Medicine,” American Statistician 8, no. 5 (1954): 21. See also Evarts A. Graham, “Remarks on the Aetiology of Bronchogenic Carcinoma,” Lancet 263, no. 6826 (1954): 1305-1308. Graham mentions here what a human experiment would require.
72 Quoted in A. Bradford Hill, “Observation and Experiment,” New England Journal of Medicine 248, no. 24 (1953): 1000.
73 Ibid., 999.
74 Ibid., 1000. See also Carl V. Phillips and Karen J. Goodman, “The Missed Lessons of Sir Austin Bradford Hill,” Epidemiologic Perspectives and Innovations 1, no. 3 (2004).
75 Major Greenwood, “Is the Statistical Method of Any Value in Medical Research?” Lancet 204, no. 5265 (1924): 153-158; and A. Hardy and M. E. Magnello, “Statistical Methods in Epidemiology: Karl Pearson, Ronald Ross, Major Greenwood, and Austin Bradford Hill, 1900-1945,” Sozial und Präventivmedizin 47, no. 2 (2002): 80-89.
76 Sir Richard Doll, “Proof of Causality: Deduction from Epidemiological Observation,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 45, no. 4 (2002): 500.
77 This is a position often voiced among historians working on behalf of the tobacco industry in litigation. See, for example, the expert statement of Kenneth Ludmerer, U.S. v. Philip Morris, et al., Washington, DC: U.S. District Court (D.C. Cir.), 2002.
78 On the history of epidemiological approaches, see Mervyn Susser, “Epidemiology in the United States After World War II: The Evolution of Technique,” Epidemiologic Reviews 7 (1985): 147-177; Mervyn Susser, Causal Thinking in the Health Sciences (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973); Mervyn Susser, “Judgment and Causal Inference: Criteria in Epidemiologic Studies,” American Journal of Epidemiology 105, no. 1 (1977): 1-15; Sander Greenland, ed., Evolution of Epidemiologic Ideas: Annotated Readings on Concepts and Methods (Newton Lower Falls, MA: Epidemiology Resources, 1987).
79 Carl V. Weller, “Causal Factors in Cancer of the Lung,” in American Lecture Series, ed. J. Arthur Myers (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1955), 99.
80 Ibid., 99-100.
81 Ibid., 100.
82 Charles S. Cameron to Evarts A. Graham, February 13, 1952, Box 3, Folder 26, Graham papers.
83 Charles S. Cameron, “Lung Cancer and Smoking—What We Really Know,” Atlantic Monthly, January 1956, 74.
84 Ibid., 75.
85 Leonid S. Snegireff and Olive M. Lombard, “Smoking Habits of Massachusetts Physicians: Five-Year Follow-up Study (1954-1959),” New England Journal of Medicine 261, no. 12 (1959): 603-604.
86 Evarts A. Graham, foreword to Smoking and Cancer: A Doctor’s Report, by Alton Ochsner (New York: Julian Messner, 1954), vii-viii.
87 Daniel Horn, Charles S. Cameron, and David Kipnis, “Survey of Medical Opinion Towards Smoking,” August 1, 1955, attached to a letter from Cameron to the physicians and scientists who participated in the Survey on Medical Opinion Towards Smoking, September 7, 1955, Box 3, Folder 25, Graham Papers, p. 11.
88 Evarts A. Graham to Alton Ochsner, February 14, 1957, Box 69, Folder 494, Graham Papers.
89 Alton Ochsner to Evarts A. Graham, February 19, 1957, Box 69, Folder 484, Graham Papers.
Chapter 6
1 “Smoke Group” [confidential memo], March 1, 1957, Bates No. 650312917/2930, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gln93f00.
2 “The Controversial Princess,” Time, April 11, 1960, 104-112.
3 Alan Rodgman, “The Smoking and Health Problem—a Critical and Objective Appraisal,” 1962, Bates No. 504822847/2852, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/zhm55d00.
4 James Patterson, The Dread Disease: Cancer and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
5 Robert N. Proctor, Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don’t Know About Cancer (New York: HarperCollins, 1996): 101-132.
6 Roy Norr, “Smokers Are Getting Scared!” Christian Herald, October 1952, 19-20, 89-92.
7 Roy Norr, “Cancer by the Carton,” Reader’s Digest, December 1952, 7-8.
8 “Beyond Any Doubt,” Time, November 30, 1953, 60-61.
9 Ibid. See also “Smoking a Cause of Cancer,” Consumer’s Research Bulletin, August 1953, 24-25; “Cigarette Hangover,” Time, November 9, 1953, 100; “Cigarettes and Cancer,” Scholastic, October 14, 1953, 18; “Cigarettes and Cancer,” Newswee
k, November 3, 1952, 102; “Fresh Hope but Hard Reality: Cubebs or Coffin Nails,” Life, December 21, 1953, 10; and “Smoking & Cancer,” Time, December 22, 1952, 34.
10 Godfrey quotation is from National Better Business Bureau, “Chesterfield Copy Theme Condemned as Misleading,” February 1953, Bates No. 1003080053/0056, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/xff38e00. For a typical advertisement featuring Arthur Godfrey, see http://tobaccodocuments.org/pollay_ads/Ches09.07.html.
11 R.J. Reynolds, “How Mild Can a Cigarette Be?” July 1949, Bates No. 502471375, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/nfj88d00.
12 R.J. Reynolds, “Not One Single Case of Throat Irritation Due to Smoking Camels! Noted Throat Specialists Report on 30-Day Test of Camel Smokers . . . ,” January 1949, Bates No. 502598158, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/flr78d00.
13 R.J. Reynolds, “30-Day Smoking Test Proves Camels Mildness!” November 20, 4, 6, 7; December 1948; January 1949, Bates No. 502597957, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/obs78d00.
14 National Better Business Bureau.
15 Val Adams, “Surgeons Remove Godfrey’s Cancer,” New York Times, May 1, 1959; and Albin Krebs, “Arthur Godfrey, Television and Radio Star, Dies at 79,” New York Times, March 17, 1983.
16 Paul Hahn, American Tobacco, “Smoking & Lung Cancer—No Proof,” 1953, Bates Nos. 02025-29, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/6746.html. Individual tobacco companies had funded research through entities such as the Damon Runyon Fund; records indicate that there is good reason to doubt the independence of this research. See John H. Teeter to H. B. Parmele, May 17, 1956, Bates No. 01182882, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/nku71e00; and Tommy Ross, “Some Notes on the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund for Cancer Research,” October 19, 1950, Bates No. 950152715/2717, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tcn54f00.
17 American Tobacco, “Press Release,” November 26, 1953, Bates Nos. 02025-29, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/6746.html.
18 The meeting was attended by Paul M. Hahn, president of American Tobacco; E. A. Darr, president of R.J. Reynolds; William J. Halley, president of Lorillard; Timothy V. Hartnett, president of B&W; O. Parker McComas, president of Philip Morris; Joseph F. Cullman, Jr., president of Benson and Hedges; J. B. Hutson, president of Tobacco Associates, Inc.; and J. Whitney Peterson, president of U.S. Tobacco. Only Liggett declined. On the 1939 price-fixing conviction, see William H. Nicholls, Price Policies in the Cigarette Industry (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1951): 337-423; see also Aviva L. Brandt, “Anti-Trust Action Against Tobacco Industry,” Associated Press, October 20, 1998; and Philip J. Hilts, Smokescreen: The Truth Behind the Tobacco Industry Cover-Up (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996), 4.
19 Timothy V. Hartnett, “Memorandum from T. V. Harnett,” December 15, 1953, Bates No. 1005039779/9783, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gvp34e00.
20 See “Draft of Proposals for Cigarette Makers for Discussion by Hill & Knowlton, Inc., Planning Committee Monday Evening, December 21, 1953,” December 21, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 8, November-December 1953, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI [ WHS-John W. Hill Papers]; and Bert C. Goss, Hill & Knowlton, “Background Material on the Cigarette Industry Client,” December 15, 1953, Bates No. TIOK0034094/4098, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ufu91f00.
21 Quoted in Karen S. Miller, The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public Relations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 4. See also Miller, 1-5, 128-129; and Scott M. Cutlip, The Unseen Power: Public Relations, A History (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994).
22 John W. Hill to R. C. McMath, “(Re: Leahy diet),” December 3, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 8, November-December 1953; and John W. Hill to R. E. McMath, “(Re: Leahy diet),” December 11, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 8, November-December 1953.
23 Edwin Dakin and Hill & Knowlton, “Forwarding Memorandum: To Members of the Planning Committee,” December 15, 1953, Bates No. 98721562/1571, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3793.html; and WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 110, Folder 2.
24 Hill & Knowlton had worked on similar industry collaborations before, most notably with the steel industry. See Miller, 91-120.
25 H. R. Hanmer, “Luncheon Meeting,” November 5, 1953, Representatives of Industry, Yale Club. November 5, 1953, Bates No. 950167334/7335, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bqh54f00. Hanmer also reported that Clarke had been allotted “ample funds” from R.J. Reynolds to fund such an effort.
26 John W. Hill, [Re: Revisions to White Paper by Mr. Hanmer], December 30, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 8, November-December 1953, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/5306.html.
27 On the speed of Hill & Knowlton’s work, see Hill & Knowlton, “Talks With Research Directors for Cigarette Companies,” December 16, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 111, Folder 5, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/27662.html; Hill & Knowlton, “Letter of Transmittal to Manufacturers,” December 22, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 110, Folder 2; Hill & Knowlton and Cigarette Research and Information Committee, “A Frank Statement to the Public by the Makers of Cigarettes,” December 22, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 110, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/4601.html; and “Conference Report: Tobacco Industry Research Committee,” December 29, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 108, Folder 12, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/4715.html.
28 “Draft of Proposals for Cigarette Makers for Discussion by Hill & Knowlton, Inc., Planning Committee, Monday, Evening, December 21, 1953”; and Hill & Knowlton, “Preliminary Recommendations for Cigarette Manufacturers,” December 24, 1953, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bbz34f00; WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 108, Folder 12.
29 In subsequent years, this would be referred to as the Gentleman’s Agreement. See “Written Direct Testimony of Jeffrey E. Harris, MD, PhD,” U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, U.S. v. Philip Morris, et al., October 4, 2004, http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/cases/tobacco2/Writtend%20Direct%20of%20Dr.%20Jeffrey%20E.%20Harris.pdf.
30 Hill & Knowlton, “Report of Conversation Between Carl Thompson and Judge Barnes,” December 31, 1953, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 8, November-December 1953, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3796.html.
31 Carl Thompson to J. W. Hill, B. C. Goss, R. W. Darrow, T. Hoyt, and L. Zahn, “Meeting with Representatives of TIRC Members, Thursday, June 7, 1956,” June 12, 1956, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 109, Folder 3, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/4637.html.
32 Tobacco Industry Research Committee, “A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers,” January 4, 1954, Bates No. 86017454, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qxp91e00.
33 Ibid.
34 E. C. K. Read and Hill & Knowlton to J. W. Hill, “Tobacco Industry Research Committee,” January 4, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 110, Folder 10, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3637.html.
35 “Tobacco Industry Takes Look, Too,” Cleveland News, January 5, 1954.
36 Leslie Gould, “Tobacco Firms Take the Right Step to Squash Lung-Cancer Scare,” New York Journal-American, January 6, 1954.
37 “Blowing Away the Smoke,” Jersey Journal, January 5, 1954.
38 Ernest L. Wynder to Evarts A. Graham, November 18, 1953, Box 103, Folder 762, Graham Papers.
39 Evarts A. Graham to Ernest L. Wynder, February 16, 1953, Box 103, Folder 762, Graham papers.
40 Alton Ochsner to Evarts A. Graham, January 26, 1954, Box 69, Folder 464, Graham Papers.
41 Alton Ochsner, Smoking and Cancer: A Doctor’s Report (New York: Julian Messner, 1954), 72.
42 Covington and Burling (inferred author), “Public Relations in the Field of Smoking and Health,” January 1963, Bates Nos. ATX110005290-303, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/zcw51a00.
43 John W. Hill, Richard W. Darrow, Carl Thompson, W. T. Hoyt, Hill & Knowlton, “Smoking, Health and Statistics: The Story of the Tobacco Accounts,” February 26, 1962, Bates No. 98721513/1551, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ksn33c00 [Tobacco Accounts].
44 As Brown & Williamson’s public relations
consultant John V. Blalock explained, Hoyt was “without question . . . the administrative head” of the TIRC. Stanton Glantz, Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 40. On Hoyt’s retirement, see Robert F. Gertenbach, “Deposition of Robert F. Gertenbach” [deposition of Gertenbach in the Matter of Broin], August 1, 1994, Bates Nos. CTRMN000001-268, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ctr/CTRMN000001-0268.html.
45 Hill & Knowlton, “Press Release” [Hartnett named TIRC chairman], July 1, 1954, Bates Nos. CTR11310600-1, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ctr/11310600-1.html.
46 “Report of Visit to University of Chicago and Michael Reese Hospital by Irwin Tucker, Grant Clarke and H. R. Hanmer, Members of the Technical Committee, Subject: Scientific Director for TIRC,” February 1954, Bates No. 961007789/7799, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jdr94f00.
47 H. R. Hanmer, “Report of Visit to Washington DC, Houston, and Galveston, Texas by Irwin Tucker, Grant Clarke and H. R. Hanmer, Members of the Technical Committee,” March 1, 1954, Bates No. 950168374/8382, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/hjm31a00.
48 W. T. Hoyt, “A Brief History of the Council for Tobacco Research—U. S. A., Inc. (CTR) Originally Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC),” 1984, Bates No. 515847269/7336, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tpg3aa00. See also Proctor, Cancer Wars.
49 Paul M. Hahn to T. V. Hartnett, February 4, 1954, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3775.html. Stewart, Cattell, and Wilhelm Hueper turned down the position. R. H. Rigdon, the other possible candidate, was interested, but the industry decided not to offer the position to him. See Industry Technical Committee, “Confidential Report on Meeting,” March 24, 1954, Bates No. 961010516/0517, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qsq94f00.
50 O. Parker McComas, “Appointment of Scientific Director and Scientific Advisory Board Meeting, May 17, 1954,” May 26, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 111, Folder 9, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3906.html.
51 “Expert on Cancer Gives Kindly Nod to Cigarette,” New York Times, February 25, 1954.