by Allan Brandt
14 Jerome Cornfield, William Haenszel, E. Cuyler Hammond, Abraham M. Lilienfeld, Michael B. Shimkin, and Ernst L. Wynder, “Smoking and Lung Cancer: Recent Evidence and Discussion of Some Questions,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 22, no. 1 (1959): 198.
15 Ibid., 173.
16 Ibid.; and Strong, 1129.
17 L. E. Burney, “Smoking and Lung Cancer: A Statement of the Public Health Service,” JAMA 71, no. 13 (1959): 1835-1836.
18 W. L. Laurence, “Science in Review: Controversy on Lung Cancer and Smoking Flares Up Again over the Statistics,” New York Times, December 6, 1959.
19 See L. E. Burney, “Policy over Politics: The First Statement on Smoking and Health by the Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service,” New York State Journal of Medicine 83, no. 13 (1983): 1253. See also Mark Parascandola, “Cigarettes and the U.S. Public Health Service in the 1950s,” American Journal of Public Health 91, no. 2 (2001): 196-205.
20 John H. Talbott, “Smoking and Lung Cancer,” JAMA 171, no. 15: 2104. Historian Jon M. Harkness has recently published an extensive analysis of the Talbott editorial, which was drafted within the surgeon general’s office (but without Burney’s approval) by Deputy Surgeon General John Porterfield. See Harkness, “The U.S. Public Health Service and Smoking in the 1950s: The Tale of Two More Statements,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (advance access on September 15, 2006): 1-42. Although Harkness draws the conclusion that the editorial reflected ambivalence about the evidence linking smoking to lung cancer, it seems more likely that it reflected the very significant trepidation within the Public Health Service about treading on the professional prerogatives of the medical profession and the AMA. By the time of Burney’s 1959 statement, there was no longer significant debate within the PHS about the importance and consistency of the epidemiological findings; the debate centered on what the surgeon general should do about these findings. Harkness, like other historians who have worked as experts on behalf of the tobacco industry in litigation, does not explore the role of the industry in shaping the scientific debate. It is particularly striking that in such a deeply researched (and speculative) article, he fails to note, for example, that Little and other executives at the TIRC had met with Porterfield and corresponded with him and others in the PHS in the year before the editorial. See, for example, “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; Clarence C. Little, “Letter to John D. Porterfield,” May 22, 1958, Bates No. 1005039304/9305, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jht74e00; John D. Porterfield, “Letter to C. C. Little,” June 4, 1958, Bates No. 1005039293, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/hht74e00; Joseph F. Cullman III, “Letter to Timothy Hartnett,” June 9, 1958, Bates No. 1002607482, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/uiu74e00; and R. C. Hockett, “Visit to Dr. H. R. Heller and Dr. Burroughs Mider at the National Cancer Institute on June 10, 1958,” June 16, 1958, Bates No. 1005039331/9333, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/sap94e00.
21 British Medical Research Council, “Tobacco Smoking and Cancer of the Lung: Statement of British Medical Research Council,” June 29, 1957 (statement was printed in the British Medical Journal and Lancet); World Health Organization, “Epidemiology of Cancer of the Lung; Report of a Study Group,” WHO Technical Reports (1960): 192; and Royal College of Physicians of London, Smoking and Health: Summary and Report of the Royal College of Physicians of London on Smoking in Relation to Cancer of the Lung and Other Diseases (New York: Pitman Publishing, 1962) [Royal College: Smoking and Health].
22 Royal College: Smoking and Health, 1.
23 Ibid., 27.
24 See also Virginia Berridge, “Science and Policy: The Case of Postwar British Smoking Policy,” in Ashes to Ashes: The History of Smoking and Health, eds. Stephen Lock, Lois Reynolds, and E. M. Tansey (Atlanta, GA: Editions Rodpi B.V., 1998), 143-163.
25 Royal College: Smoking and Health.
26 “Differ on Effects of Heavy Smoking; Cancer Report and Reply,” New York Times, July 13, 1957.
27 Stefan Timmermans and Marc Berg, The Gold Standard: The Challenge of Evidence-Based Medicine and Standardization in Health Care (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003).
28 Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, 1964), 7 [Surgeon General: Smoking and Health].
29 “Transcript of the President’s News Conference on Foreign and Domestic Matters,” New York Times, May 24, 1962. For a description of the press conference, see A. Lee Fritschler, Smoking and Politics: Policy Making and the Federal Bureaucracy (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), 39-40.
30 Fritschler, 40-41; M. B. Neuberger, Smoke Screen: Tobacco and the Public Welfare (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963), 62-64.
31 Richard Pearson, “Dr. Luther Terry, Former Surgeon General, Dies,” Washington Post, March 31, 1985.
32 In 1958, the TIRC was renamed the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), with its PR functions detailed to the newly created Tobacco Institute.
33 Clark MacGregor to Surgeon General Luther Terry, November 9, 1962, Washington, DC: National Archives Record Group 90, Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health.
34 Three members of the committee smoked cigarettes, and two others occasionally smoked pipes or cigars. “Press Conference by Surgeon General’s Committee on Smoking and Health,” January 11, 1964, Bates No. 690000011, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kag33f00.
35 Surgeon General: Smoking and Health, 9; Fritschler, 44; and Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes (New York: Knopf, 1996), 221-223, 242-262.
36 Robert C. Hockett, “Memorandum for the Files: Surgeon General’s Committee,” August 13, 1962, Bates No. 11308722/8722, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/quc6aa00.
37 Clarence Cook Little, “Suggested Scientists,” 1962, Bates No. 980197925/7927; Richard Kluger, Interview with Leonard M. Schuman, July 15, 1988, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/76600.123.html; and Kluger, Ashes to Ashes, 242-246.
38 W. T. Hoyt, “Memorandum for the Files,” September 28, 1962, Bates No. 11308689/8690, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/otc6aa00.
39 Luther L. Terry, “The Surgeon General’s First Report on Smoking and Health: A Challenge to the Medical Profession,” New York State Journal of Medicine 83, no. 13 (1983): 1254.
40 Ibid., 1254-1255.
41 Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, “The Nature, Purpose and Suggested Formulation of the Study of the Health Effects of Smoking, Phase I,” 1962, Washington, DC: National Archives Record Group 90.
42 Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, “Minutes of Meeting on the Nature, Purpose and Suggested Formulation of the Study of Health Effects of Smoking, Phase I,” 1962, Washington, DC: National Archives Record Group 90.
43 Peter Hamill, “Letter to Leonard Schuman,” 1963, Washington, DC: National Archives Record Group 90.
44 “Oral History of Stanhope Bayne-Jones,” Stanhope Bayne-Jones Papers, 1870-1969, p. 1127, Washington, DC: National Library of Medicine.
45 U.S. Public Health Service, “Criteria for Judgment,” in Surgeon General: Smoking and Health. On meta-analysis, see G. V. Glass, “Primary, Secondary, and Meta-Analysis,” Educational Researcher 5 (1976): 3-8; J. A. Hall, L. Tickle-Degnen, R. Rosenthal, and F. Mosteller, “Hypotheses and Problems in Research Synthesis,” in The Handbook of Research Synthesis, eds. H. Cooper and L. V. Hedges (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1994); and L. V. Hedges and I. Olkin, Statistical Methods for Meta-Analysis (San Diego: Academic Press, 1985).
46 J. Berkson and T. Hoyt, [Re: Payment schedule], August 6, 1966, Bates No. 11330791/ 0791, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/yrp6aa00; and W. T. Hoyt, [Re: Consulting job with CTR], July
29, 1966, Bates No. 11330476/0476, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/glp6aa00.
47 Surgeon General: Smoking and Health; and “The Smoking Report,” New York Times, January 12, 1964.
48 Clarence C. Little, “Memorandum for the Files: Conference with Drs. Hamill and Bayne-Jones, January 15, 1963,” 1963, Bates No. 11309627/9629, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ctr/11309627-9629.html; Clarence C. Little, “Memorandum for the Files: Conference with Dr. Hundley, January 16, 1963,” 1963, Bates No. 11309630, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ctr/11309630-9630.html.
49 Clarence Cook Little, “Memorandum for the Files: Telephone Conversation with Dr. Hamill, Initiated by CCL, 10:45 A.M., December 10, 1962,” 1962, Bates No. 11308649/8650, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/osc6aa00.
50 Peter Hamill, “Letter to C.C. Little,” November 30, 1962, Bates No. 92525958/5959, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qnh54a00.
51 Clarence Cook Little, “Memorandum for the Files: Telephone Conversation with Dr. Hamill, Initiated by CCL, 10:45 A.M., December 10, 1962,” 1962, Bates No. 11308649/ 8650, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/osc6aa00.
52 Peter Hamill, “Visit with Dr. C. C. Little, TIRC, NYC, November 19th and 20th,” 1962, Bates No. 70102841/2843, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/clj59c00.
53 Peter Hamill, “Visit with Dr. C. C. Little, TIRC, NYC, November 19th and 20th,” 1962, Bates No. 70102841/2843, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/clj59c00.
54 Stanhope Bayne-Jones, “Oral History of Stanhope Bayne-Jones,” Stanhope Bayne-Jones Papers, 1870-1969.
55 Richard Kluger, Interview with Peter V. Hamill, September 8, 1988, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/prw56c00.
56 Clarence Cook Little, “Confidential Memorandum: Meeting with Dr. Peter V. V. Hamill on April 29,” 1964, Bates No. HK0441013/1014, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/dfx10a00.
57 Surgeon General: Smoking and Health, 21.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., 182, 183, 183-184, 185.
60 Austin Bradford Hill, “The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 58 (1965): 295-300; and Mervyn Susser, “Epidemiology in the United States After World War II: The Evolution of Technique,” Epidemiologic Reviews 7 (1985): 147-177.
61 Richard Kluger, Interview with Leonard M. Schuman, 1988, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/76600.123.html; Lester Breslow, “Some Sequels to the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health: Thirty Years Later,” Annual Epidemiology 6 (1996): 372-375; Luther L. Terry, “The Surgeon General’s First Report on Smoking and Health: A Challenge to the Medical Profession,” New York State Journal of Medicine 83, no. 13 (1983): 1254-1255; and Leonard M. Schuman, “The Origins of the Report of the Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health to the Surgeon General,” Journal of Public Health Policy 2, no. 1 (1981): 19-27.
62 “Press Conference by Surgeon General’s Committee on Smoking and Health,” January 11, 1964, Bates No. 690000019, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kag33f00.
63 Surgeon General Luther Terry, Interview by Hugh Downs, Today Show, NBC, January 13, 1964.
64 Mark Ross, “Why I Am Still Smoking 25 a Day,” Daily Express, January 13, 1964.
65 Louis F. Fieser, “Letter to Members of the Committee on Smoking and Health,” 1965, William Cochran Papers, Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA [Cochran Papers].
66 Louis F. Fieser, “Letter to William Cochran,” 1965, Cochran Papers.
67 As quoted in Clarence Cook Little, Report of the Scientific Director, 1963-64, 1963, Bates No. 946007710/7782, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/xwy85f00.
68 See Stephen Klaidman, Health in the Headlines: The Stories Behind the Stories (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 182-228.
69 Stanley Joel Reiser, “Smoking and Health: Congress and Causality,” in Knowledge and Power, ed. Sanford A. Lakoff (New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1966), 301.
70 Austin Bradford Hill, “The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 58 (1965): 300.
71 See Fritschler, 89.
72 R. K. Heimann, “TIRC Meeting January 29, 1964,” January 31, 1964, Bates No. 966000481/0484, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/xxl21a00.
73 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.
74 Ibid., 2.
75 Ibid.
76 J. S. Dowdell, “Public Opinion—Smoking and Health,” August 10, 1967, Bates No. 500006192/6194, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/yni99d00.
77 William Kloepfer, “Memorandum” [planning for future institute projects], April 15, 1968, Bates No. TIMN0252389/2391, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vne72f00.
78 Helmut Wakeham, [letter to Earle C. Clements re: problems of the tobacco industry], May 26, 1970, Bates No. 87657726/7727, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/btp91e00.
79 Helmut Wakeham. “‘Best’ Program for C.T.R.” [memo to Joseph F. Cullman III], December 8, 1970, Bates No. CTRMN045348/5350, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/cst30a00.
80 Stanton A. Glantz, The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 290.
81 Kluger, Ashes to Ashes, 362-363; and Richard Kluger, Interview with Freddy Homburger, May 10, 1988, Bates No. 82131011/1017, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tiq34c00.
82 George Weissman, “Surgeon General’s Report” [letter to Joseph F. Cullman III], January 29, 1964, Bates No. 1005038559/8561, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ctv74e00.
83 Carl Thompson, “Tobacco and Health Research Procedural Memo,” October 18, 1968, Bates No. TIMN0071488/1491, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/upv92f00.
84 “Tobacco Industry’s Peak Year: 523 Billion Cigarettes Smoked,” New York Times, January 1, 1964; “Cigarette Sales Decline Sharply,” New York Times, June 30, 1964; “Has the Smoking Scare Ended?” U.S News & World Report, October 18, 1965; and Total and Per Capita Manufactured Cigarette Consumption* and Percentage Change in Per Capita Consumption—United States, United States Department of Agriculture, 1900-1995 (Centers for Disease Control—National Center For Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion), 2005, available from http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/research_data/economics/consump1.htm.
85 See [report re: talks by Surgeon General Luther Terry in Miami Beach, Sunday, Nov 29], November 29, 1964, Bates Nos. TIMN0114118-21, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ahf/TIMN0114118-4121.html.
86 John Parascandola, “The Surgeons General and Smoking,” Public Health Reports 112 (1997): 440-442.
87 D. F. Thompson, “Understanding Financial Conflicts of Interest,” New England Journal of Medicine 329, no. 8 (1993): 573-576.
88 James Q. Wilson, The Politics of Regulation (New York: Basic Books, 1980); and James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). On the general topic of science advising and political regulation, see Sheila Jasanoff, The Fifth Branch: Science Advisors as Policymakers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
Chapter 8
1 “Hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee,” March 29, 1965, Bates No. 501944403.
2 Thomas Whiteside to FDA Commissioner Charles C. Edwards, quoted in Thomas Whiteside, Selling Death: Cigarette Advertising and Public Health (New York: Liveright, 1971), 135.
3 S. Bayne-Jones, Oral History Memoir, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, 1108.
4 It was a frequent claim on the part of the industry and the Tobacco Institute that as a result of the “controversy,” there was widespread “common knowledge” of the “alleged” harms of the product. This claim would be argued in litigation in order to justify the industry position that individuals had “assumed” the risks of smoking. See, for example, the discussion in Richard A. Wegman, “Cigarettes and Health: A Legal Analysis,” Cornell Law Quarterly 51, no. 4 (1966): 699-705.
5 David Kessler, A Question of Intent: A Great American Batt
le with a Deadly Industry (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), 6-7; Martha A. Derthick, Up in Smoke: From Legislation to Litigation in Tobacco Politics (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2002), 52-55; and A. Lee Fritschler, Smoking and Politics: Policy Making and the Federal Bureaucracy (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), 32-34.
6 Michael Schudson, Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American Society (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
7 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
8 “Cigarette Concern Stops ‘Health’ Ads,” New York Times, January 24, 1930; and “The F TC and Cigarettes,” New Republic, August 17, 1942.
9 M. N. Gardner and A. M. Brandt, “‘The Doctors’ Choice Is America’s Choice’: The Physician in U.S. Cigarette Advertisements, 1930-1953,” American Journal of Public Health 96, no. 2 (2006): 222-232.
10 “‘Guide’ Published on Cigarette Ads,” New York Times, September 22, 1955.
11 R. W. Pollay and T. Dewhirst, “The Dark Side of Marketing Seemingly ‘Light’ Cigarettes: Successful Images and Failed Fact,” Tobacco Control 11 (Suppl 1) (2002): I20.
12 Claude E. Teague, “Disclosure of Invention: Filter Tip Materials Undergoing Color Change on Contact with Tobacco Smoke,” December 17, 1953, Bates No. 501650188, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/owl139d00.
13 W. L. Dunn and Myron Johnston, “Market Potential of a Health Cigarette,” June 1966, Bates No. 1000338644/8671, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bdw67e00.
14 Edwin Dakin, Hill & Knowlton, “Forwarding Memorandum: To Members of the Planning Committee,” December 15, 1953, Bates No. 98721562/1571, http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/3793.html; Pollay and Dewhirst, I18-I30; 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; and Lippincott & Margulies, “Development of a Positioning Statement for a New Filter Cigarette, Code Name—HRH,” September 1963, Bates No. 990197077/7148, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ahl70a00.