Internal tobacco industry documents related to the 1954 "Frank Statement"

(a) Think occasionally in terms of trying to "smear" the personal responsibility, motives, judgments, or techniques of Wynder and others supporting him. (But this approach would be most dubious.)

(b) To believe the scientific case can be arguing in the public arena, by leading the layman through elaborate statements which only specialists are really qualified to weigh and debate, in their own scientific councils; for the quest of ultimate causes behind known effects is the specialists' job. (This approach is shown in the documents from Philip Morris and American Tobacco, when they extract quotes from the various Journals, and assemble them for public circulation. But it is extremely doubtful whether anyone could trim such an assembly of quotes in a fashion that would (l) give the smoker absolute psychological assurance, and (2) still leave the compilation a completely honeetstatement of the cancer situation, in a way that would satisfy most scientists at this juncture. Honesty in science requires careful consideration and weighing of all points of view. The cigarette companies cannot hope to sponsor any public debate over cause-and-effect that would satisfy both smokers and scientists. Hence they are bound to lose in this effort regardless of what they night briefly gain.)

(c) To overlook the fact that in this particular instance, the stakes for the public are even larger than for the tobacco manufacturers. (For the public, an issue touching the deepest of human fears and instincts is involved - the issues of uncontrollable disease and death. Hence cigarette companies might not readily be forgiven, if their approach to this problem is stemmed only from eagerness to protect their earnings, and if they twisted the research of medical science (which seeks to save men) into a device to save stockholders. There is no precedent where a great industry has been forced to face such grave issues.

In the past, industry has given little twists to the facts of science, to convert them into sales propaganda, without much risk. The cigarette industry has indeed been doing this for years. We can therefore readily understand its assumptions that the same technique will work now, in devising propaganda. But it is highly important to note that the deep issues of life-and-death that are now involved make highly doubtful the question as to whether the familiar techniques can be relied on. The stakes are too large; the penalties for losing could be too great.)

(d) To assume that agents like science writers can be guided and encouraged to disseminate special "interpretations" of current findings, in ways that would blame lung cancer on everything else but cigarettes - or (even better) in ways that would throw doubt on the validity of statistics showing great increases in lung cancer. If the issue were merely coughs, or sore throats, or warts, this might work. There is serious question as to whether anyone — after due reflection -- would consider such a course useful for long term purposes, in the present circumstances.

(a) Smearing and belittling them;

(b) Trying to overwhelm them with mass publication of the opposed viewpoints of other specialists;

(c) Debating them in the public arena; or

(d) We can determine to raise the issue far above them, so that they are hardly even mentioned and then we can make our real case.

Stop public panic, without ever getting in the position of giving false assurances, or of giving false emphases. The facts for the average man are reassuring enough, without getting into any scientific arguments whatever his chances of getting lung cancer are too infinitesimal to worry about at all. [...] So let the scientists do the worrying for us - that's their business; and meanwhile let us go on eating, and working, and playing, and smoking, and relaxing, and riding in automobiles, and living a good life everyday.

You can count on the cigarette companies (who have obligated themselves to pour millions of dollars into cancer research) to take anything out of your cigarette that is a health hazard, if our science ever really finds any such hazard in the wonderful tobacco leaf. Meanwhile know this: despite the most elaborate attempts, no efforts to give mice a lung illness by making them live days on end in tobacco smoke have ever produced a case of such illness through that kind of exposure.