[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 59 (Friday, May 13, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            CONCERNS OVER CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL REPORTS

                                 ______


                          HON. GARY A. FRANKS

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 12, 1994

  Mr. FRANKS of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I would like to applaud the 
efforts of those who have played a role over the past 30 years in 
educating the American public about the issues relating to tobacco and 
health. That effort is particularly important as it relates to our 
young people who should be discouraged from the beginning to use 
tobacco at an early age.
  However, I am concerned that this laudable campaign can severely be 
undermined should the American public come to believe that the research 
cited by the Federal Government to discourage tobacco use is shown to 
be faulty or, even worse, deliberately misleading.
  Specifically, it was recently brought to my attention that the Center 
for Diseases Control [CDC] report entitled ``Oral Cancer: Deadly to 
Ignore'' asserts that ``approximately 75 percent of oral and pharyngeal 
cancers are attributed to use of smoked and smokeless tobacco.'' The 
CDC report also was cited in a report issued by the Health and Human 
Services [HHS] Office of the Inspector General entitled ``Spit Tobacco 
and Youth'' which made the same assertion; other materials recently 
circulated have made the further claim that, obviously relying on the 
CDC report, 75 percent of all deaths dur to oral cancers, a number 
equal to 22,500, are attributed specifically to ``smokeless tobacco.''
  In light of the current debate regarding increasing the Federal 
excise tax on tobacco products as proposed in the President's Health 
Security Act, I directed my staff to investigate these claims further 
by directly contacting those individuals responsible for preparing the 
CDC report. While I am no particular advocate of tobacco products, I 
was dismayed by the results.
  Both CDC officials acknowledged authorship of the CDC reports and the 
75-percent claim asserted therein. Indeed, the primary author cited a 
specific research paper as the basis for implicating tobacco, both 
smoking and smokeless tobacco. Yet, even a cursory review of that 
paper, entitled: ``Smoking and Drinking in Relation to Oral and 
Pharyngeal Cancer: published by Dr. Blott in 1988, reveals that the 
researchers estimated that 75 percent of all oral and pharyngeal 
cancers were caused by ``tobacco smoking and alcohol drinking''--no 
such calculation was ever made for smokeless tobacco.
  In short, it appears that the CDC personnel ``created'' the 75-
percent claim attributable to smokeless tobacco by grossly 
misinterpreting the Blot study, removing ``alcohol drinking'' from the 
equation all together, reinterpreting ``tobacco smoking'' to 
``tobacco'' generally and improperly extending the study to implicate 
smokeless tobacco.
  I would like to have given CDC benefit of the doubt, as having 
perhaps inadvertently mischaracterized the results of the Blot Study. 
That was until one CDC official theorized that the statistic was 
deliberately skewed because ``they want people to stop.'' Regardless of 
whether you may applaud this objective, I strongly believe that, as the 
old saying goes, the end doesn't justify the means, even in the case of 
tobacco.
  For those who are opposed to tobacco, you may say, ``what's the 
harm?'' The ``harm'' is that such misuse of scientific research to 
achievement a ``politically correct'' objective can only undermine the 
public's confidence in Government pronouncement on serious health 
issues--not limited only to tobacco but other serious concerns such as 
AIDS--and bring into question the credibility of Federal agencies such 
as CDC which are given millions of taxpayer dollars by Congress each 
year.
  We, the Congress, have the responsibility to hold these agencies 
accountable for their pronouncements; the American public expects 
nothing less.

                          ____________________