sample="rhetorical" bates="MNAT00287529" isource="ctr" decade="1960" class="ue" date="19690203" CTR FROM: THE COUNCIL FOR TOBACCO RESEARCH - U.S.A., 633 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10017 Contact: W. T. Hoyt Oxford 7-9790 FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1969 The scientist who has been associated with more research in tobacco and health than any other person declared today that "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 toward, the causal hypothesis." The statement was made by Dr. Clarence Cook Little, Scientific Director of The Council for Tobacco Research - U.S.A. on the 15th anniversary of its founding by tobacco growers, warehousemen and manufacturers. Dr. Little said that scientific progress in the smoking and health field, supported in large part by the Council, has shown that - "1. The genetic makeup of the individual largely determines his susceptibility to cancer, cardiovascular disease or chronic respiratory disease which may appear after exposure to various environmental challenges. "2. Many factors other than smoking are significantly associated with cancer, cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory disease. "3. Statistical associations between smoking and lung cancer, based on study of those two factors alone, are not proof of causal relationship in the opinion of most epidemiologists. "4. Major evaluations of health and smoking have been based on painting mouse skins with artificially prepared smoke condensates. But the relative degrees of cancer-forming response observed in these experiments neither parallel nor coincide with statistical data on the association of tobacco smoking and diseases in man. "5. Interpretation of certain lung tissue changes following smoking as being unique or 'precancerous' is in dispute among pathologists. "6. Rapid progress is being made in the development of improved methods for experimental exposure of animals to whole smoke for the sake of better control and more accurate evaluation." Beginning ten years before the issuance of the Report on Smoking and Health of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, The Council for Tobacco Research - U.S.A., according to Dr. Little, "has sponsored an increasingly effective program in tobacco and health research. "The whole field of smoking and health requires a great deal more research and information before a proper evaluation can be made," Dr. Little said. "The Council's supporters have pledged continued expansion of our independent research support as opportunities arise. "This provides the best prospect yet that needed new knowledge about tobacco use and health will be obtained." Dr. Little is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a former managing director for sixteen years of the American Society for the Control of Cancer (now the American Cancer Society), a past president of the American Association for Cancer Research, and founder and former director of the Jackson Laboratory for Cancer Research. #