Document 3eq4rJRbyyjyOnzpM4B0QXdmJ

FILE NAME Kent KNT DATE 1954 Apr 3 DOC KNT037 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Editorial - Cigarette Hucksterism and the AMA - Journal of American Medicine 1180 EDITORIALS AND COMMENTS THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 35 N. DEARBORN ST " . CHICAGO 10 ILL Editor wow, AUSTIN SMITH M.D. Associate Editor 5 ow Editor for Medical Literature Assistant Editor | 5 JOH NSON P. HAMMOND Abstracts . GEORGE HALPERIN WAYNE G. BRANDSTADT M.D. M.D. M.D. Subscription price . Fifteen dollars per annum in advance Cable Address 2. 2. 1. Dd, Medic Chicago CIGARETTE HUCKSTERISM AND THE A. M. A. The unauthorized and medically unethical use of the prestige and reputation of the American Medical Asso- ciation and THE JOURNAL in Kent cigarette advertisements currently appearing in the American press and other channels of mass communication constitutes an outrageous example of commercial exploitation of the American medical profession The Implication in these advertisements that the American Medical Association authorizes supports or approves any particular brand of cigarettes or combination of claims made in their bewhether pygmy or sized with or with- out filters nicotinized or denicotinized a most reprehensible instance of hucksterism The manner in which the P. Lorillard Company has extolled its particular brand of cigarettes by reference in its advertisements to the American Medical Association and THE JOURNAL is to be strongly condemned On the basis of only one factor isolated from the P. Lorillard Company blatantly implies many that the efficiency of their brand of filter tip solves the health problems associated with cigarette smoking This approach to a vital problem is conceived and lacks fac tual medical support The inference that any type of filter has the approval of the American Medical Association is equally without foundation Until the clinical relationship between the amount of nicotine and tars and their effect on the individual smoker is conclusively established no filter can offer a panacea except one that possesses 100 efficiency The hard facts of the matter are that a completely efficient filter would permit the smoker to inhale nothing but hot air Certainly there is no adequate evidence to prove con- a clusively that the reduction of nicotine and tars by means of filter that is 60 inefficient has any physiological significance The amount of nicotine and tars that reach the smoker's oral cavity is the one factor of fundamental importance This cannot be determined merely by establishing the efficiency of a filter The presentation of one fact and the exclusion of all other pertinent facts can 1. Lucchesi P. F. and LaBoccetta A. Relationship of Tonaits and Adenoids to the Type of Poliomyelitis Am J. Dia Child 68 1944 July 2. Top P. H Occurrence of Poliomyelitis in Relation tomies at Various Intervals J. M. A. 150 534 to Tonsillec Oct. 11 1952 3. Weinstein .; Vogel M. L. and Weinstein N A Study of the Relationship of the Absence of Tonsils to the Incidence of Bulbar myelitis J. Pediat 44 14 Jan 1954 Polio- 4/600 STATE LEGAL SUPPLY CO J.A.M.A. April 3 1954 result in a serious misrepresentation of the of health in relation to the true status who are misled smoking problem Smokers are likely to obtain a false sense of rity without real protection secu- RELATION OF ABSENCE OF TONSILS TO BULBAR POLIOMYELITIS Data have been provided over a period of gest that mere absence of tonsils and adenoidysearresgatrodlseusgs of the time of their removal leads to increased bility to bulbar poliomyelitis In a study of suscepti 432 with acute anterior patients poliomyelitis Lucchesi and LaBoc- cetta ' found that in 61 of patients whose tonsils absent at the time the infection occurred the bulbospwienrael form of the disease developed while in 76 the bulbar type developed A much higher incidence of bulbar involvement took place in these persons than in who still had tonsils and patients adenoids the difference being apparent in all age groups Seventy per cent of the patients who died of poliomyelitis had neither tonsils nor adenoids when they became ill In 1952 Top investigated 1,947 patients who had been admitted to the Herman Kiefer Hospital in Detroit over a 10 year period because of poliomyelitis In this group 51.9 of the patients had neither tonsils aor adenoids at the time the disease was contracted 85.1 of the patients afflicted by bulbar poliomyelitis had viously been subjected to the pre- tonsillectomy procedure while 68.7 of the patients attacked by bulbospinal poliomyelitis had previously undergone tonsillectomy Of the patients with nonparalytic forms 45.6 and of the patients with spinal paralytic forms 43.1 had neither tonsils nor adenoids Of the patients afflicted by bulbar poliomyelitis who had previously been subjected to tonsillectomy 93.5 died as compared to 56.9 of patients with bulbospinal poliomyelitis who died Weinstein Vogel and Weinstein * recently repeated the investigations of Lucchesi LaBoccetta and Top to determine whether the relation of absence of tonsils and adenoids to increased susceptibility to bulbar poliomye- litis applied to their own patients Records at Haynes Memorial Hospital Boston of 800 patients with poliomyelitis 500 of whom had been subjected to tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy at some time and 300 of whom had not been operated on were studied All patients had a clinical history pointing to poliomyelitis physical findings to indicate infection of the central nervous and sterile spinal fluid that contained more than 1s0ywshtietme blood cells per cubic millimeter an increased quantity of protein and a normal sugar content Analysis of the data suggested that the absence of tonsils and adenoids regardless of the time of their removal in relation to the onset of poliomyelitis increased the risk that the bulbar form of the disease would de- velop Of 85 patients in whom bulbar poliomyelitis developed 85.9 had previously been subjected to tonsillectomy of those in whom tonsils were still present bulbar poliomyelitis developed in only 14.1 A similar relationship was observed in the case of patients attacked by bulbospinal poliomyelitis the disease occurring about five times more frequently in patients subjected to tont-