Daily Doc: TI, Apr 30, 1969: 'Medical Experts' say ditch stronger health warnings
Daily Doc: 'Medical Experts' say ditch stronger health warnings
Title: Scientific Experts Present Evidence to U.S. Congress Showing No Need for Strengthening Health Warnings of Cigarettes
TI, Apr 30, 1969
Bates #: TIMN0120908/0912
August 18, 2000
Given the conclusive evidence we now have that smoking is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide, and given the growing epidemic of tobacco-induced illness worldwide, the testimony of these distinguished "medical experts" for the Tobacco Institute is amazing and utterly shameful. How many lives could have been saved if "distinguished medical experts" like these had not given such grossly misleading testimony to the government and the public?
CITATION
Title: Scientific Experts Present Evidence to U.S. Congress Showing No Need for Strengthening Health Warnings of Cigarettes
Type of Document: Press release
Author: Tobacco Institute
Recipient: N/A (media outlets)
Date: 19690430
Site: Tobacco Institute Document site http://www.tobaccoinstitute.com/
Page Count 5
Bates No. TIMN0120908/0912
URL: http://www.tobaccoinstitute.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=TIMN0120908/0912
Litigation Usage: Minnesota Selected
Found Using Search Criteria: "Brinkman" (for Geoffry L. Brinkman, a scientist quoted by the tobacco industry as supporting their position that smoking cigarettes does not cause disease)
QUOTES
Washington, April 30 -- Sixteen additional medical and scientific experts provided evidence to Congress today showing that a stronger warning on cigarettes would be unwarranted.
Their statements were provided for the record of current hearings before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce by 14 physicians and two other scientists.
Doris L. Herman, M.D., a Los Angeles pathologist, reported on her studies of autopsy material which indicate that, proportionately, the type of lung cancer said to be associated with cigarette smoking has been decreasing. She called for "extensive further investigation" to establish the cause of lung cancers.
Joshua Harold Burn, M.D., former head of the pharmacology department at Oxford and a visiting professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told the committee that "there is a growing body of evidence that nicotine is stimulating and useful to man" in the amounts found in cigarettes.
...A former president of the American Medical Women's Association, Dr. Bernice C. Sachs of Seattle, cautioned the Congress about any stronger warnings against smoking. She said any such move would "not convey factual, workable information," but a threat "calculated to invoke fear if not terror."...
...In a statement from Italy, the dean of Perugia University Medical School, Dr. Lucio Soveri, a pathologist...declared "The problem of lung cancer still remains to be solved."
...A Chicago physician said the same thing about atherosclerosis, another illness which has been statistically associated with smoking. Dr. Walter S. Priest, a professer-emeritus of medicine, warned of "psychic trauma" if smokers are continually confronted with unreasonably frightening warnings.
Travis W. Winsor, M.D., a University of Southern California heart specialist...said a metabolic defect, usually genetic in origin, may be more likely cause of arteriosclerosis than cigarettes....
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