Jump to full article: Columbia (SC) State, 2010-01-31
Author: THOMAS H. MAUGH II - Los Angeles Times
Intro: Lawrence Garfinkel, the statistician who overcame his lack of a doctoral degree and training in oncology to become one of the driving forces in demonstrating that smoking causes lung cancer, died Jan. 21 in Seattle. He was 88.
The cause of death was cardiovascular disease, according to his son Martin.
Garfinkel oversaw the training of thousands of volunteers for the American Cancer Society and helped conduct two of the largest epidemiological studies ever, enrolling more than 2.2 million men and women. Those studies, along with the British Doctors' Study, played key roles in formulating the landmark 1964 surgeon general's report on smoking and health.
"Larry Garfinkel joined the American Cancer Society as a young scientist in 1947, and for more than four decades played an instrumental role in expanding knowledge of and reducing death from smoking," said John R. Seffrin, chief executive of the society. "His remarkable achievement is an important reminder what a tremendous impact an individual can make, and inspires all of us to continue the fight against cancer." . . .
Before 1930, lung cancer was a rare disease never encountered by most physicians. But World War I had turned many American males into smokers, and the aftermath began to become apparent in the 1940s. By 1950, four separate retrospective studies had linked smoking to the disease.
In 1951, British researchers enrolled 40,000 physicians in a study that lasted more than 40 years. At the same time, the cancer society's Dr. E. Cuyler Hammond and Dr. Daniel Horn enrolled 187,783 white males in nine states in a similar study.
Garfinkel, who had joined the society as a sta
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