Chapter 13 
DR. DEBETHIZY: Personally, I do not know. But what 1 would say is that 
the data that I saw Dr. Samet present today, which were largely taken from 
the 1981 Surgeon General's report, their conclusion was that people smoking 
lower yielding products have reduced relative risk for lung cancer. 
DR. PETITTI: I think that you saw the quotes from Dr. Wynder and some 
of the earlier commentators. They mentioned 40-percent reductions in tar 
might lead to large reductions in lung cancer. I just want to get a sense of 
the magnitude in the reduction of disease risk with differences in tar levels 
over the range we are talking about. 
I just want to make the point that adjustment is the problem; when you 
adjust, you assume people smoke the same number of cigarettes, whether 
they smoke high yield or low yield. And it is very difficult to handle 
statistically and is, I think, one of the problems in the original data that 
were published in the 1981 report. 
DR. DEBETHIZY: But you know, on average, that people smoking lower 
yielding products do not smoke more cigarettes. 
DR. BOCK: I am having a little bit of a problem. You had mentioned some 
observations with staining of saliva regarding ventilation and hole blockage. 
It seems to be the opposite from what was reported. Can you give me some 
details of how you know you got saliva on the area covered by the lips in 
every case, or most cases? 
DR. TOWNSEND: What I can do is give you detailed information on the 
whole experiment. And I will have to do that privately, because I don't have 
the information with me today. 
What I said earlier is the case. We saw infrequent hole blockage, but 
there was hole blockage in some cases, and we determined that by an 
inhydrin staining process. And I cannot recall the details and the numbers, 
because I really was not responsible for that experiment. I would be happy 
to follow up with you on that, if you are interested. 
DR. COHEN: Let me quickly state what I think the premises are of your 
presentation. Dr. Townsend, and see if you disagree with where I disagree. 
Suppose we accept the premise that the FTC system provides useful 
ranking information, everyone understanding the difference between 
ranking and other kinds of information. Let's say the system does that. 
Suppose we also accept the premise that truly individual smoking 
characteristics are beyond the scope of such a rating system. 
Now, you have established that there are product design features — type 
of paper, type of tobacco, etc., that lead to different yields because of 
smoking parameters that vary with such product design elements, such as 
puff rate, puff volume, etc. 
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