In a recent issue of TRUTH magazine we submitted the latest statistical information concerning the relationship between the use of tobacco, and the incidence of cancer and heart disease. At the risk of being termed a 'crank' or 'hobbyist' on this subject, we submit with no further comment, a verbatim copy of an Associated Press dispatch, dated July 5, 1958.

"Washington - The main findings of a new Public Health Service study are that smokers had a death rate 32 (thirty-two) percent higher than non-smokers, and that smokers of cigarettes alone had a rate 58 (fifty-eight) per cent higher than non-smokers. More than 99 1/2 (ninety-nine and one half) percent of the persons studied were men. The findings resulted from a study of almost 200,000 holders of U. S. Government Life Insurance policies.

"Other points in the report:

"1. The lung cancer rate for regular smokers of cigarettes only was about 10 times the death rate for non-smokers.

"2. The death rates among regular cigarette smokers were closely related to the amount smoked. For example, death rates of persons who, smoked more than 40 cigarettes a day were much higher than those of persons who smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes a day.

"3. The death rate of persons who regularlY smoked cigars and/or pipes was not significantly higher than that of non-smokers. Only the heaviest users of cigar and pipe tobacco had an appreciably higher death rate from all causes than non-smokers.

"4. Nearly two-thirds of the 6,203 deaths of tobacco users studied were attributed to diseases of the heart, blood vessels and kidneys. The death rate from coronary heart disease was found to be 63 percent greater for regular cigarette-only smokers than for non-smokers.

5. Regular cigarette smokers who had stopped smoking cigarettes before the study began in 1954, had a lower mortality rate than those who continued to smoke. However, the rate was 30 percent higher than that of non-smokers.

"6. Regular cigarette smokers also had greater death rates from certain respiratory disease such as bronchitis, pleurisy and emphysema, from ulcers of the stomach and duodenum, and from cirrhosis of the liver.

The Associated Press report continues:

"In New York, Timothy Hartnett, Chairman of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, criticized the study for dealing only with tobacco smoking. He said:

'They ignored all other factors. They admittedly included no clinical or laboratory research in their study.'

"He said the Public Health Service findings paralleled the results of an American Cancer Society study because 'The Government's statisticians used virtually the same questionaire.'

He added:

'Talking of greater death rates in terms of percentages makes good scare headline material. But it also serves to divert public attention from the fact that lung cancer deaths during the two and one-half only 197 out of the scores of thousands of cigarette smokers in the 200,000 veterans surveyed.'

"The report was prepared by Dr. Harold Dorn, the Chief Statistician for the National Institutes of Health - a part of the Health Service.

"Dr. Dorn said the death rate ratio of 32 per cent higher for smokers than for non-smokers was arrived at after adjustments were made to take into account the differences in age distribution between the two groups.

'The Dorn report, in covering the 7,382 deaths during the 2 1/2 year period, did not go into such details as how many of the 198,926 policy holders smoked."

"Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body." (The Apostle Paul's letter to the Christians at Corinth. I Cor. 6:19-20.) (See also Romans 12:1-2, 1 Thess. 5:21-22, Eph, 5:10.)

Truth Magazine III:1, pp. 15, 23
October 1958