The Cigarette Century

by Allan Brandt

  52 Hill & Knowlton, “Tobacco Industry Research Committee Press Conference (condensed),” June 15, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 110, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ryd6aa00.

  53 Tobacco Industry Research Committee, “Confidential Report—Tobacco Industry Research Committee Meeting,” October 19, 1954, Bates Nos. CTRMN007295-7, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ctr/CTRMN007295-7297.html.

  54 “Dr. Little Accepts Birth Control Post,” New York Times, January 24, 1936.

  55 “Dr. Little Decries Materialistic Aim,” New York Times, June 5, 1936.

  56 “Sees a Super-Race Evolved by Science: Dr. C. C. Little Tells Ithacans Laws to Weed Out Misfits Are ‘Just Around the Corner,’” New York Times, August 25, 1932.

  57 George D. Snell, “Clarence Cook Little: October 6, 1888-December 22, 1971,” in Biographical Memoirs (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1975), 241-263.

  58 “Lists Three Evils in Our Colleges,” New York Times, July 28, 1931.

  59 “Trials of Faculties Urged in Colleges,” New York Times, July 29, 1931.

  60 Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes (New York: Knopf, 1996), 141.

  61 In both Michigan and Maine, Little had maintained a laboratory and conducted research during the summers, keeping a hand in research even as he focused on administration.

  62 “To Finance Dr. Little in Studies of Cancer: Five Wealthy Detroiters Provide for Research by Retiring Head of Michigan,” New York Times, May 8, 1929.

  63 The Bar Harbor fire of 1947 destroyed almost the entire laboratory along with some 60,000 mice. Laboratories around the world that had been supplied with strains of mice by the Jackson Laboratories now contributed to replenishing the lab with descendents of the mice first bred there, and Little worked assiduously to raise the funds to rebuild. See “A Hundred Thousand Mice,” New York Times, November 1, 1947; and “Mice, Cancer and Men,” New York Times, November 1, 1948.

  64 Patterson, 173.

  65 “Cancer Cure Seen Job for One Person,” New York Times, October 28, 1950.

  66 Clarence Cook Little, 1957 Report of the Scientific Director, June 30, 1957. Bates No. 501773418/3466, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fof39d00.

  67 Evarts A. Graham to A. Bradford Hill, August 9, 1956, Box 45, Folder 354, Graham Papers.

  68 “$82,000 Is Granted to Study Smoking,” New York Times, November 8, 1954.

  69 Clarence Cook Little, “Guest Editorial: Smoking and Lung Cancer,” Cancer Research 16, no. 3 (1956): 184.

  70 Clarence Cook Little, “Press Conference of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee,” June 15, 1954, Bates Nos. 11310464-500, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vyd6aa00.

  71 See, for example, Colin Talley, Howard I. Kushner, and Claire E. Sterk, “Lung Cancer, Chronic Disease Epidemiology, and Medicine, 1948-1964,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 59, no. 3 (2004): 329-374; Mark Parascandola, “Skepticism, Statistical Methods, and the Cigarette: A Historical Analysis of a Methodological Debate,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 47, no. 2 (2004): 244-261; and Kenneth Ludmerer, expert statement and deposition, U.S. v. Philip Morris, et al. For a thorough rebuttal of this position, see especially Robert N. Proctor, “Tobacco and Health,” Expert Report, United States v. Philip Morris, et al., 2002.

  72 E. Cuyler Hammond, “Epidemiological Studies on Smoking in Relation to Lung Cancer,” Unio Internationalis Contra Cancrum; VI Congres international Contre Le Cancer 8, no. 1 (1954): 90. On Hammond’s skepticism regarding the retrospective studies, see E. Cuyler Hammond and Daniel Horn, “Tobacco and Lung Cancer,” in Proceedings of the National Cancer Conference, Volume II (American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, and American Association for Cancer Research, 1952), 871-875. His statements were reported in the general press as well. See Robert K. Plumb, “Study on Smoking and Cancer Is Set,” New York Times, October 20, 1954. Hammond is quoted here as saying that the evidence of “a possible cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and lung cancer” was “overwhelming.”

  73 See also discussion in chapter 7 on consensus statements emerging in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Proctor’s “Tobacco and Health,” his expert report in United States v. Philip Morris, et al., 2002.

  74 For a longer discussion of Hueper, see especially Proctor, Cancer Wars.

  75 See Hoyt, Brief History and Glantz, Cigarette Papers, 33-40.

  76 “Report on Meeting of Scientific Advisory Board Charleston, S.C,. February 14-15, 1958,” February 19, 1958, Bates No. 950259598/9602, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/naz34f00. See also “Report on Meeting of Scientific Advisory Board, New York, N.Y., May 10-11, 1958,” May 13, 1958, Bates No. 961003439/3443, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kpr94f00; and “Confidential Report, Tobacco Industry Research Committee Meeting, May 8, 1958,” May 8, 1958, Bates No. 980314235/4242, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/uhm85f00.

  77 Oscar Auerbach et al., “Changes in the Bronchial Epithelium in Relation to Smoking and Cancer of the Lung: A Report of Progress,” New England Journal of Medicine 256, no. 3 (1957): 104. Auerbach would present additional confirmatory findings in 1961 and 1979. See Oscar Auerbach et al., “Changes in the Bronchial Epithelium in Relation to Cigarette Smoking and in Relation to Lung Cancer,” New England Journal of Medicine 265, no. 6 (1961): 253-267; and Oscar Auerbach, E. Cuyler Hammond, and Lawrence Garfinkel, “Changes in the Bronchial Epithelium in Relation to Cigarette Smoking, 1955-1960 vs. 1970-1977,” New England Journal of Medicine 300, no. 8 (1979): 381-386. In subsequent research, Auerbach would expose beagles to smoke, producing similar changes in the lung tissue. E. C. Hammond, O. Auerbach, D. Kirman, and L. Garfinkel, “Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Dogs,” Archives of Environmental Health 21, no. 6 (1970): 740-753; and O. Auerbach, E. C. Hammond, D. Kirman, and L. Garfinkel, “Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Dogs. II. Pulmonary Neoplasms,” Archives of Environmental Health 21, no. 6 (1970): 754-768. See also Nicholas Wade, “Premature Puff for Smoking Beagles,” Nature, April 30, 1971, 544-545; and Kluger, Ashes to Ashes, 350-358.

  78 “Confidential Report, Scientific Advisory Board Meeting, May 11, 1957,” May 11, 1957, Bates No. 950261352/1355, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/nny34f00.

  79 O. Parker McComas, “Memorandum to T. V. Hartnett,” July 15, 1957, Bates No. 70123537.

  80 Earl Newsom & Company, Research Department, “Annual Reports of the Council for Tobacco Research,” December 21, 1972, Bates No. MNAT00515749/5762, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/hah70a00.

  81 A. W. Spears, “Confidential. . . . Brief Review of the Organizations Contributing to Research into Tobacco,” June 24, 1974, Bates No. 01421596/1600, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lmf20e00.

  82 Donald Cooley, “Smoke Without Fear,” True Magazine, 1954, Bates No. 11310873/0908, http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/11310873-0908.html. For Tobacco Industry Research Committee involvement with Cooley’s article, see T. V. Hartnett, “Report of Activities Through July 31, 1954,” July 31, 1954, Bates No. 82106817/6841, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bwc34c00; Hill & Knowlton, “MEMORANDUM TO: Tobacco Industry Research Committee, October 8, 1954,” Bates No. 01139591/9647, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/evh50e00; and Carl Thompson, Conference with Cooley, November 17, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 111, Folder 2, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3545.html.

  83 Clarence Cook Little, [speech], May 26, 1962, Bates No. HT0137037/7044, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/nqx1aa00.

  84 Richard W. Darrow and Hill & Knowlton to C. Thompson, “Jim Payne Project,” March 17, 1955, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 111, Folder 3, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3585.html.

  85 Harry Haller to J. W. Hill, B. C. Goss, B. Littin, White, and Battersby, “Moves to Counter Anti-Tobacco Blasts,” May 12, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 111, Folder 1, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3456.html.

  86 John W. Hill to C. C. Little, July 15, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 111, Folder 9, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3898.html.

  87 W. T
. Hoyt to W. F. Rienhoff, [Re: Ochsner book], November 5, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 111, Folder 9, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3886.html.

  88 Stephen Klaidman, “Blowing Smoke,” in Health in the Headlines: The Stories Behind the Stories (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 182-228.

  89 Tobacco Information Committee, “Tobacco and Health,” January-February 1958, Bates No. MNAT00515648/5651, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/utg70a00, p. 1.

  90 Tobacco Industry Research Committee, “Confidential Report Tobacco Industry Research Committee Meeting, Council for Tobacco Research,” April 28, 1955, Bates Nos. CTRMN003816-35, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/toq30a00, p. 11.

  91 Hill & Knowlton, “Report on TIRC Booklet—A Scientific Perspective on the Cigarette Controversy,” May 3, 1954, Bates Nos. BBAT003814-50, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/10362.html.

  92 Tobacco Industry Research Committee, A Scientific Perspective on the Cigarette Controversy, March 1954, Bates No. 961008152/8172, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/wye21a00, p. 4.

  93 Joseph Garland, “A Scientific Perspective,” New England Journal of Medicine 250, no. 21 (1954): 923.

  94 Garland, 924.

  95 Paul M. Hahn, [reaction to the Frank Statement], March 9, 1954, Bates No. 11309945/ 9945, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/dnd6aa00.

  96 John W. Hill, “Edward R. Murrow program See It Now,” December 1, 1954, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3634.html.

  97 See also Fred Friendly and Edward R. Murrow, “Cigarette and Lung Cancer—Part I,” See It Now, CBS-TV, 1955; Friendly and Murrow, “Cigarettes and Lung Cancer—Part II,” See It Now, CBS-TV, 1955; “Tobacco Industry Research Committee Information Activities, August and September, 1954,” October 7, 1954, Bates No. 92438596/8599, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/dyb09c00; and “Edward R. Murrow, Broadcaster and Ex-Chief of U.S.I.A., Dies,” New York Times, April 28, 1965.

  98 Hill & Knowlton to T. V. Hartnett, “Report of Activities Through July 31, 1954,” July 31, 1954, Bates No. 82106817/6841, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bwc34c00, p. 10.

  99 Ibid., 11-12.

  100 John W. Hill, “Smoking, Health and Statistics: the Story of the Tobacco Accounts.”

  101 Hill et al., Tobacco Accounts, Bates No. 98721532.

  102 See Letter from John W. Hill to T. V. Hartnett, “Edward R. Murrow Program ‘See It Now,’” December 1, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 9, Folder 10; letter from Carl Thompson to John W. Hill, “For Personal Use: Re: Some Current TIRC Projects,” September 9, 1954, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 111, Folder 2; and letter from Carl Thompson to John W. Hill and others, “Meeting with Representatives of TIRC Members, Thursday, June 7, 1956,” 1956, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 109, Folder 3.

  103 Rene DuBos, Mirage of Health: Utopias, Progress and Biological Chance (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959).

  104 “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.

  105 John W. Hill to B. C. Goss, “Re: Public Opinion Research Job Should Be Done by the Industry-Wide-Committee,” January 8, 1954, Bates Nos. 000854-5, WHS-John W. Hill Papers, Box 8, January 1954, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/27566.html.

  106 John W. Hill, “Program Projects,” January 15, 1954, Bates No. 1005104309/4313, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jbf91a00.

  107 Tobacco Information Committee, Tobacco and Health, January/February 1958, Bates No. MNAT00515648/5651, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/utg70a00.

  108 Hill et al., Tobacco Accounts, Bates No. 98721530.

  109 Philip Morris, “Another Frank Statement to Smokers,” January 1959, Bates Nos. 1002607695-7, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/cov74e00.

  110 There is no clear documentation that this second “Frank Statement” ever appeared in print. However, its existence in the industry files indicates its continued use of the idea of “not enough research.”

  111 Hill et al., Tobacco Accounts, Bates No. 98721548.

  112 Claude E. Teague, “Survey of Cancer Research with Emphasis upon Possible Carcinogens in Tobacco,” February 2, 1953, Bates Nos. 501932947-68.

  113 George Weissman, “Public Relations and Cigarette Marketing,” March 30, 1954, Bates No. 2022239339/9343, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ipp53e00; R. N. DuPuis, [letter to George Weissman re: NATD speech], March 31, 1954, Bates No. 1002366507, http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/1002366507.html. See also American Tobacco, Press Release, February 23, 1955, Bates No. 950206999/7002, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jvu44f00; Hill & Knowlton, “Tobacco and Health Studies Cover Wide Range of Research,” May 17, 1955, Bates No. 950207788/7791, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/djo31a00.

  114 Richard Kluger, Interview with Charles J. Kensler, June 12, 1989, Bates No. 96746611/6617, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ufw44c00.

  115 Alan Rodgman, “The Analysis of Cigarette Smoke Condensate. I. The Isolation and/or Identification of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Camel Cigarette Smoke Condensate,” September 1956, Bates No. 501008279, http://tobaccodocuments.org/rjr/501008241-8293.html [The Analysis of Cigarette Smoke Condensate].

  116 “R.J. Reynolds Research and Development Activities Fact Team Memorandum Volume III,” December 31, 1985, Bates Nos. 515873805-929, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/37102.html.

  117 Rodgman, The Analysis of Cigarette Smoke Condensate, Bates No. 501008280.

  118 Alan Rodgman, “The Optimum Composition of Tobacco and Its Smoke,” November 2, 1959, Bates Nos. TIOK0034800-3, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ti/TIOK0034800-4803.html.

  119 Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes, 196-197; and Kluger, Interview with Charles J. Kensler.

  120 R. N. DuPuis, “Confidential Memo to George Weissman and Parker McComas,” March 31, 1954, Bates No. 2022239347, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/etx74e00.

  121 Helmut Wakeham, “An Opinion on Cigarette Smoking and Cancer,” September 22, 1959, Bates No. 2065388779/8780, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bay43a00.

  122 Helmut Wakeham, “Tobacco and Health—R&D Approach: Presentation to R&D Committee at Meeting Held in New York Office,” November 15, 1961, Bates No. 2023193305/3328, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/uxc85e00, p. 21.

  123 Hill & Knowlton, “New Evidence Shows Complexities of Lung Cancer, Scientist Says,” September 27, 1960, Bates No. 500518873/8875, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/nqh79d00.

  124 H. R. Bentley, D. G. I. Felton, and W. W. Reid, “Report on Visit to U.S.A. and Canada, April 17-May 12, 1958,” Bates No. TINY0003106/3116, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fmt22f00.

  125 Hill et al., Tobacco Accounts, Bates No. 98721549.

  126 Joseph Lelyveld, “Cigarette Makers Prosper Despite Debate on Hazards,” New York Times, November 29, 1963.

  127 Ernest L. Wynder, “An Appraisal of the Smoking-Lung-Cancer Issue,” New England Journal of Medicine 264, no. 24 (1961): 1239.

  128 Ibid., 1240.

  129 Clarence C. Little, “Some Phases of the Problem of Smoking and Lung Cancer,” New England Journal of Medicine 264, no. 24 (1961): 1241.

  130 Ibid., 1245.

  131 Joseph Garland, “The Great Debate,” New England Journal of Medicine 264, no. 24 (1961): 1266.

  132 Ibid.

  133 Joseph Garland, “Cancer of the Lung,” New England Journal of Medicine 249, no. 11 (1953): 465.

  Chapter 7

  1 Speech, National Conference on Smoking and Youth, June 10, 1964, quoted in “Health Service Opens Campaign on Smoking,” Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1964.

  2 Addison Yeaman, “Implications of Battelle Hippo I & II and the Griffith Filter,” July 17, 1963, Bates No. 2074459290/9294, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ari52c00.

  3 Thomas Whiteside, Selling Death: Cigarette Advertising and Public Health (New York: Liveright, 1971), 31.

  4 Brown & Williamson, “Smoking and Health Proposal,” 1969, Bates No. 690010951/0959, http://le
gacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/rgy93f00.

  5 See Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz, Public Health and the State: Changing Views in Massachusetts, 1842-1936 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); and Judith Walzer Leavitt, The Healthiest City: Milwaukee and the Politics of Health Reform (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982).

  6 See Rene DuBos, Mirage of Health: Utopias, Progress and Biological Change (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishing, 1959); A. R. Omran, “The Epidemiologic Transition: A Theory of the Epidemiology of Population Change,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 49, no. 4 (1971): 509-538; and Walsh McDermott, “Medicine: The Public Good and One’s Own,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 21, no. 2 (1978): 167-187.

  7 James H. Cassedy, Charles V. Chapin and the Public Health Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962); and Judith W. Leavitt, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health (Boston: Beacon, 1996).

  8 Allan M. Brandt and Martha Gardner, “Antagonism and Accommodation: Interpreting the Relationship Between Public Health and Medicine in the United States During the 20th Century,” American Journal of Public Health 90, no. 5 (2000): 707-715. See also Rosenkrantz; Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982); and Institute of Medicine, Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health, The Future of Public Health (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988).

  9 Frank M. Strong et al., “Smoking and Health: Joint Report of the Study Group on Smoking and Health,” Science 125, no. 3258 (1957): 1129-1133.

  10 Strong, 1129.

  11 Leroy E. Burney, “For Release in P.M. Newspapers,” July 12, 1957, Bates No. TIMN0110057/0058, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kkk92f00.

  12 Brandt and Gardner.

  13 Lewis C. Robbins, “Position Statement of Surgeon General on Smoking and Cancer” (Washington, DC: Public Health Service, Cancer Control Program, 1956). See also Dennis L. Breo, “The Unsung Public Health Hero Who Helped Launch the War on Tobacco,” JAMA 264, no. 12 (1990): 1597-1598.