Harvard Scientist Counters Claim That Smoking Is a Heart Threat

A scientist in the Department of Nutrition of the Harvard School of Public Health has challenged the statements of the U.S. Public Health Service, the American Heart Association and others who claim cigarette smoking is causally linked to deaths from coronary heart disease (CHD).

Dr. Carl C. Seltzer, Research Associate in Physical Anthropology and member of the Surgeon General's Committee in 1964, revealed his disagreements in an article in the current issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

In his article, Seltzer writes that "since publication of the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health in early 1964, there have appeared many statements with regard to the relationship of cigarette smoking and CHD which go far beyond the limited conclusions of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee..."

The Advisory Committee indicated in its 1964 report to the Surgeon General that it "was unable to reach a firm conclusion as to the role smoking plays in causing or precipitating a death from this (coronary heart) disease."

Seltzer noted that almost immediately after the Surgeon General's 1964 report the statements of the public Health Service, the American Heart Association, and other medical groups used such phrases as "caused by" and "associated with cigarette smoking" in describing the relation between cigarette smoking and CHD.

"The phrases clearly imply," Seltzer said, "that the consequence of smoking cigarettes is a variable amount of excess premature coronary heart disease deaths. But no such implications can be drawn from the conclusions of the Surgeon General's Committee of 1964."

Seltzer added that a close study of the evidence in new reports does not make it any clearer that there is a causal connection between cigarette smoking and coronary heart disease.

Seltzer's special field is the study of obesity, which is thought to be related to CHD. From this area of study, he became interested in the effects of smoking on this heart condition.

In an interview yesterday, Seltzer declined to make a statement concerning the relation of cigarette smoking to other heart and lung diseases.