sample="supplemental" bates="500599608" isource="rjr" decade="1960" class="ne" date="19690218" S= 31 com unf. February 18, 1969 Mr. Leon J. Oxman Post Office Box 682, G.P.O. New York, New York 10001 Dear Mr. Oxman: Thank you for your letter which has been referred to me for reply. We appreciated your sharing with us your comments on the smoking and health issue. Despite the publicity being generated by the anti-tobacco forces, the hypothesis that cigarette smoking is responsible for human disease has not been proven. At the fifteenth annual meeting of The Council for Tobacco Research--U.S.A. in January, 1969, Dr. Clarence Cook Little, Scientific Director of the Council, said: "There is no demonstrated causal relationship between smoking and any disease. The gaps in knowledge are so great that those who dogmatically assert otherwise--whether they state that there is or is not such a causal relationship--are premature in judgment. If anything, the pure biological evidence is pointing away from, not towards, the causal hypothesis." The report of the American Medical Association's Committee for Research on Tobacco and Health, at the AMA's 1968 annual meeting, makes it clear that research so far has not established a causative link between cigarettes and lung cancer, heart ailments, or other human diseases. Long before the advent of the current anti-smoking campaigns our industry established The Council for Tobacco Research--U.S.A. to support independent scientific research in a sincere attempt to determine what adverse effects, if any, smoking has upon human health. Also, in more recent years, funds have been appropriated by our industry for tobacco and health research grants being administered by the American Medical Association. To date, over $30 million has been contributed by our industry to support independent research related to smoking and health. The AMA committee, mentioned above, reported at the Accociation's meeting in San Francisco that: "The problems related to establishing any kind of cause and effect relationship between tobacco use and health are far more complex than had been supposed. Many years may be required to gather sufficient experimental facts and data to clear what is at best a muddled picture. It is evident that we have a long road to travel and that this will be done slowly." In summary, despite many years of extensive research, medical science has not established that smoking is a direct cause of any human disease. The answers to the many unanswered smoking and health questions--and the true cause of human diseases--can, we believe, be determined by scientific research. Our Company indends, therefore, to continue to support such research until the truth is known. I trust that these comments, and the enclosed materials, will help you understand our position on this matter. Sincerely, J. M. Lambeth Consumer Relations Department JML/ed Enclosures