Smoking and Health: The Need to Know -- 1972, The Tobacco Institute.
Smoking and Health: The Need to Know
Have you ever wondered where pit bull propagandists came up with their arguments? Some of them are so kooky, I thought they just made them up themselves. But, after seeing a propaganda documentary produced by the Tobacco Institute it would appear that the pit bull lobby copied their arguments directly from the1970s era tobacco lobby . It seems that defending tobacco is much like defending pit bulls.
Take a look at this 1972 documentary film, Smoking and Health: The Need to Know produced by the Tobacco Institute. The goal was to refute the Surgeon General’s 1964 Smoking and Health: Report. The Surgeon General’s statement was the first confirmation that smoking tobacco definitely causes lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. The Surgeon General’s Report reviewed over 7,000 research articles to come to their conclusion.
General background of tobacco research
- 1939 - First research that found a link between smoking and cancer
- 1954 - Study finds that heavy smokers had a 40 time greater chance of dying of lung cancer
- 1964 - Surgeon General’s report concludes that smoking causes lung cancer
- 1972 - Tobacco Institute produced a film to refute Surgeon General's Report
Here are seven arguments the Tobacco Institute used to refute the irrefutable scientific evidence that smoking causes cancer. It seems like the pit bull lobby appropriated these arguments to refute the irrefutable evidence that pit bulls are dangerous. If you watch the entire video, you will find many more arguments that are virtually identical to the arguments the pit bull lobby uses.
Timestamps from Smoking and Health: The Need to Know
2:52 - The narrator practically shouts when he names a list of medical experts we will be hearing from in the film. They will be telling us that cigarette smoking does not cause cancer. When this documentary was produced, there was conclusive evidence that smoking cigarettes caused lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. Looking back now, it is easy to see these science hacks were flat out lying.
The pit bull lobby has their own set of experts which they trot out to defend pit bulls. And these experts also should be aware of the yearly death toll inflicted by pit bulls as well as the dozens of published medical studies which all come to the conclusion that pit bulls are far more dangerous than other kinds of dogs. You can find some of these experts on the National Canine Research Council site (owner: Animal Farm Foundation pit bull advocacy group).
Appeal to Authority: I am a Veterinarian & I support Pit Bull type dogs NOT BSL!!!
6:20 - Many risk factors contribute to heart disease.
While correct, controlled studies had already shown that smokers had a higher risk of heart disease than non-smokers. This argument was copied exactly by the pit bull lobby to hide the fact that pit bulls cause more fatalities than all other kinds of dogs. The NCRC published a paper that describes the “co-occurances”, or common “contributing factors” in fatal dog attacks.
Their study found that there were common elements related to fatal dog attacks. For instance, most victims were less able to defend themselves because of their age. Attacking dogs were more likely to be intact. The NCRC ignored that the dog being a pit bull is the leading factor, by far, in fatal dog attacks.
Experts denying genetic traits of the attacker.
6:50 - The word “cancer” isn’t a scientific term because there are many kinds of cancer.
This is obvious nonsense. The term “cancer” is a term for a group of diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control. And smoking is a leading cause of lung cancer.
The pit bull lobby uses the same exact argument. They say the term “pit bull” is meaningless slang because there is more than one breed of pit bull. This argument is so silly that it is surprising that the pit bull lobby did not make this up themselves. The term describes a group of dog breeds that were originally bred for “sport aggression” for the purpose of dogfighting. And pit bulls kill more people than all other kinds of dogs combined.
10:08 - The Surgeon General's large scale review of literature is flawed.
The "experts" first mention the large report that reviews many studies. Then, they shift to criticizing a single study in the report without explaining the shift. They give the impression that the exhaustive report reviewing thousands of research papers is one single study.
The pit bull lobby uses a similar tactic to mislead by ignoring many studies. The AVMA published a supposed literature review from 2014 entitled “Dog Bite Risk and Prevention: The Role of Breed” However, the authors fail to include all recent studies, of which there are many, on the role of breed in aggression, bites, and attacks. Instead, they cherry pick old studies that support their position that breed has no role in the prevalence of bites and attacks. Many of the cherry picked studies are from a time when pit bulls were rare.
Lobbyists make false claims that only appear to be supported by science.
13:48 - Since not all people who smoke get lung cancer, smoking can’t be the cause.
Doctors know that smoking is a risk factor that raises your chance for getting cancer. Not just a risk factor - the leading risk factor. The hack doctor knows that risk factors increase your risk, they do not guarantee you will get cancer.
The pit bull lobby adopts the same argument. Since not all pit bulls attack, genetics and breed can't be the reason serious and fatal pit bull attacks are so prevalent. This is just as nonsensical as the argument the tobacco industry doctors make. No one has ever said that all pit bulls are going to attack. But pit bulls are indeed much more likely to inflict serious injuries than other breeds.
14:30 Other toxins cause lung cancer, too.
One of their examples is asbestos. In 1960 scientists already knew that asbestos exposure causes a specific kind of lung cancer called mesothelioma. And they knew that smoking does not cause mesothelioma. Bringing up cancers caused by other toxins is completely beside the point. Cigarette smoking was still a leading cause of lung cancer and lung cancer was the most common of all cancers in males in the 1960s.
The pit bull lobby's version of this argument is simple: Other kinds of dogs bite, too. Obviously, though true, the statement is irrelevant because pit bulls are still responsible for 66.4% of all dog bite related fatalities.
17:24 - “Most mortality statistics in the cigarette controversy are based on death certificates, not on autopsies performed.” “Death certificates are notoriously inaccurate.”
Here it is suggested that deaths attributed to lung cancer were misidentified and that another disease or condition was the cause of death. According to the Tobacco Institute only autopsies are accurate enough to determine lung cancer is the cause of death. However, during the sixties, several studies found that death certificates were largely accurate.
There were discrepancies when death certificates were reviewed after autopsy. But, the discrepancies were not extensive enough to render statistical data unreliable. In addition, doctors were better at diagnosing and recognizing cause of death for some diseases than for others. And, regarding Lung cancer specifically, the discrepancies between death certificates and autopsies represented a substantial under count of lung cancer as cause of death on death certificates. Which means that deaths by lung cancer were under reported, not over reported, by doctors. These studies were available when the Tobacco Institute documentary came out. These doctors knew the truth.
The pit bull lobby's version of this argument claims that news articles and medical records are inaccurate because they misidentify other kinds of dogs as pit bulls in dog attack articles and research. But they offer no proof to support this. The pit bull lobby claims that only DNA tests can confirm that a dog is a pit bull. But, the courts have consistently found that a person of average intelligence can visually identify a pit bull. In fact, a recent study shows that pit bulls as well as mixed breed dogs with pit bull characteristics are responsible for more serious attacks and for a greater number of attacks. This study confirms that pit bull mixes with visible pit bull traits are as dangerous as pit bulls.
It is uncanny how closely the pit bull lobby arguments mirror the tobacco lobby arguments. And this is only a few found in this film. You can find many more if you watch the entire thing. It is unclear whether the pit bull lobby actually studied these arguments, or if trying to defend the indefensible always leads you to the same lame arguments. Looking back, knowing what we now know, it is easy to see the tobacco industry’s lies. Someday soon, everyone will be able to look at the pit bull lobby’s lies and see them for what they are. Until then, we need to keep fighting for truth.
A Tobacco Institute Video from 1984. Note how the lobbying works on a federal and state level.
Related articles:
07/16/20: Pit Bull Myths: The Media Conspiracy Against Pit Bulls - DogsBite.org
10/20/16: Back Story of the Montreal Pit Bull Ban, What the Vets Omitted and Cited...
04/20/15: A Primer on State Preemption Laws and Charts for Advocates - DogsBite.org
I am very tired of hearing that dogs with testicles do the most biting. Maybe they do, but consider this. If 25% of the male pit bulls are neutered, then 75% are not neutered. Thus most of the biting pit bulls are not neutered. Statistically, neutered males bite more often than unneutered males. At least, that’s in the information from animal behaviorists.
Dog breeds were developed using intact males and females. If an intact dog could not do the job required, it wasn’t used for breeding. If an intact Border Collie chewed up the person guiding it in herding sheep, the dog was gone. Its testicles were not removed to see the effect.
A friend had a poorly socialized and poorly trained intact GSD. He was a biter although his bites were minor. She had him neutered, but that didn’t stop his biting. He was destroyed for biting.
People tend to consider the effect of castration on farm animals, and castration can greatly affect their temperament. Dairy bulls are very dangerous, but dairy steers are not dangerous.
I have a well trained, friendly, intact male GSD. He doesn’t bite. He plays with dogs and puppies. He shares his food bowl.
If he were neutered, he wouldn’t behave any better. He has working titles and a temperament award. He’s safe at dog shows.
Veterinarians tend to see one dog at a time. Most pit bulls are friendly with people. So veterinarians don’t see the temperament problems. They don’t see the animal aggression. One young veterinarian told me she has more problems with Chihuahuas than pit bulls. The pit bull she was petting and playing with had just charged at my GSD. Was he intending to play or bite? I don’t know.
The fact is that neutered/spayed pit bulls are being adopted out of shelters, and some of these dogs have maimed/killed animals and people. If castration made vicious dogs safe pets, I would be all for it. What I’d rather see if the breeding of pit bulls to stop. Castration does not make vicious dogs less vicious.
Rachel, well said.
Working with protection dogs, most of the trainers and handlers for them know that you will get a far *calmer* and less puppyish dog (male or female) if you do not neuter/spay the dog for at least the first three-five years as their brains mature. Yet all these new dog trainers are now telling people to spay/neuter their pets.
And you’re right on the money. People didn’t used to neuter bad dogs, or consider it helpful for dangerous dogs–they culled them.
That meant, fewer unsuited for purpose dogs, in the gene pool which meant more dogs, even the accidentally bred ones, were better dogs.
Charles Eisemann never spayed/neutered any of his dogs, they all lived together male and female and he never had an accidental breeding. He left that up to the expert kennels that bred his dogs.
I had unneutered dogs and unspayed females together for years, including boarding and training and never came close to an “accident” either.
Not only are the dogs getting dumbed down, so are the humans.
Neutering has not cut down the feral cat population in any major way. How anyone believes it will cut down in pitbulls, is beyond me.
A dog that bites, bite. Cutting bits off it isn’t going to change that.
Looking at that one image of the veterinarians holding signs saying they don’t support BSL just makes me roll my eyes. I mean, it seems obvious to me why vets wouldn’t support BSL. Pits are the #1 dog injuring other animals. And where do injured animals go? The vet. Whether to treat injuries or put down animals that are beyond recovery, vets make money from the damage pits do. Also, where do you go to put down vicious pits? The vet. Again, more money for the veterinarians. So of course they have reason to not want pits banned, but it has nothing to do with thinking the dogs are actually good pets.
Excellent comment. Follow the money trail… and you often find the truth. My neighbor’s wire haired terrier was attacked by a pitbull and it cost my neighbor $1200 in vet bills. Ironically, her sister owned a pitbull that turned on her sister, tore out her throat, and killed her.
Once again, follow the money. In addition to the vets, you’ll find a lot of money sloshing around in the pet industry and in those so-called humane groups. They too promote widespread dog ownership, and, along with that, dog worship throughout our society.
I don’t think most veterinarians want to see animals chewed up by pit bulls even though they might get some profit from it. How about injecting saline instead of distemper/parvo vaccine so the vets would make money off of these two horrible diseases? Veterinarians simply don’t do that although they could.
Veterinarians make money off of spays/neuters. Couldn’t they make more money taking care of the offspring of these dogs?
Veterinarians like animals or they wouldn’t be veterinarians. Nobody likes to deal with severely injured animals and their devastated owners. Often the vets have to send the pets’ owners to the ER to get their wounds cared for.
Does anyone think plastic surgeons, orthopedic specialists, and physical therapists want to see children horribly injured by pit bulls so they can make money off of them?
Veterinarians are compassionate people too. They like healthy pets. They don’t like to have to euthanize pets.
Consider this. A cocker spaniel came in with severe bite injuries under his neck. Both jugular veins had been severed but had sealed off so this dog was a survivor.
He was also a snot, and we couldn’t safely get him out of a cage because we couldn’t put a leash on him due to the neck injury. We had to have his owner bring him in and muzzle him daily for treatment. That’s not fun for anyone. We might have made more money if we had kept him hospitalized, but we were not going to risk injury to the dog or the staff. Severely injured animals are often risky to anesthetize and tough to handle.
If they don’t want to see animals chewed up by pit bulls, they should advocate for BSL. Simple. End of Story.
Veterinarians SEE what pit bulls do to other dogs. They know that pit bulls inflict many more and much more serious and MORE COSTLY damage to pets brought to them, but they choose not to share that information.
And any veterinarian that advocates for pit bulls better NEVER turn away a sobbing owner who brings in their torn-to-pieces, pit bull victim, family member, for lack of ability to pay up front.
Sure, veterinarians have to make a living too, but if they’re promoting the presence of the number one killer of our family members, they better damn well put their money where their loud mouths are.
It is much more seemly, if they’re not willing to treat pit bull victims for free, to at least keep their big mouths shut about the matter, because they DO gain financially from pit bulls victims, and DO have the freedom to turn away sobbing owners of pit bull victims if they don’t feel like offering their services for free.
But, as I said, if they really cared about our pets not getting mauled and killed, they’d speak the truth about what they see in their practices.
I agree with this. If veterinarians aren’t purposefully profiting from this travesty, they should at least be a voice in warning the public about how dangerous pit bulls are for other animals. Even if they choose to be silent they are complicit. They know! They see it everyday. Every time a mangled pet comes in to their office, every time they make a farm call where they have to sew up ears or put down a pony because of a pit bull attack, and don’t speak out, they are as guilty as the dog owners. More so, actually. They cannot claim ignorance. Not sharing this knowledge is just as bad as if they were silent about the dangers of Parvo. They know, yet they refuse to educate people. They should all be ashamed of themselves.
A very insightful review. For those interested in more on how “science” was misused to deny the relationship between cancer and tobacco, the indispensable history of cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES, includes a brief history of that campaign.
Excellent article Lucy.
cLaP cLap, aPpLaUse aPpLaUse!!!
People who love dangerous canines are completely in denial of factual statistics. They cite absurdly false statistics. The obvious truth is denied, because there is too much money and too much evil in the Dangerous Canine Industry.
I got an unsolicited email today encouraging the adoption of a dog for Giving Tuesday. The dog highlighted was a pit bull, of course.
Under a huge photo of the pit bull, we learn that he loves peanut butter, cuddling, and going on walks. And then we get the kicker:
“Best suited for a low traffic home or in a home with people willing to keep him separate from visitors as they work on helping him get comfortable with other people entering his space.”
(Translation: Human-aggressive pit bull who wants to eat Grandma, trick-or-treaters, delivery people, or any other person who might happen to visit your home. Wonderful doggie, though.)
The email concludes with “Has he won you over yet? Do you know the perfect forever family?”
The perfect forever home for that dog is either a dog training facility (and there’s nowhere near enough of them) or a pet cemetery.
The wording is ludicrous. That rescue is deranged. How is someone’s home “his” space? Is he paying rent?
Exactly. And how might such a dog “enjoy walks?” Won’t he encounter strangers who may get too close to his “space?” What happens then?
If this dog simply barked when the doorbell rings, as just about every dog does, this wouldn’t even be highlighted in his info. The fact that potential owners have to be warned right off the bat shows that there is a serious behavior problem that could result in someone getting hurt or killed.
3 million dead dogs a year, or so we’re told…but they want to keep this one, alive.
The latest people I’ve talked to here that have acquired “rescues” have acquired them *from other countries*. Think about that.
Have we neutered so many decent dogs and mongrels that there’s nothing LEFT but vicious or questionable pitbulls? Or is it all a money-making racket?
Yes, it’s all a money-making racket. To the tune of billions each year, just in the United States.
Dogs are big business. It’s that simple.
I still wonder how many vicious pit bulls are seen by vets. Pit bull owners are notoriously lousy pet owners. I doubt if they vet their dogs very often at all.
A vet friend of mine in a small town did animal control. She told me after their five days were up, she automatically euthanized the intact male pit bulls. She said she wouldn’t chance placing them, but she didn’t want her clients to know she was destroying healthy, homeless dogs. We took in a hit by car pit bull with a badly fractured pelvis. He put a deep forearm bite on my boss. Then there was quarantine. The owner had preschool children, and his dog was a very talented biter who was too severely injured to escape typical preschoolers. I convinced the owner that the dog had to be euthanized in order to protect his children.
I asked one vet what she would do if she walked into PetSmart with her dog and pit bulls were trying to attack her dog. She said she would quickly get out of the store.
My point is quite a number of vets don’t trust pit bulls. They simply don’t want their names listed as opposing pit bulls because they fear it would hurt their businesses. Furthermore, if pit bulls complete their genetically determined entertainment, no live victims are seen in practice.
Consider how organized the pro pit bull movement is. Vets don’t want to deal with them.
Rachel, Good points, all.
Here’s the rub though. When pitbulls belonged to dogfighters who had either vets on the take or no vets at all, and the rest of the pitbulls and dog victims belonged to people who were financially disadvantaged, vets were likely more outspoken because many of the animals they were stitching up, belonged to, for want of a better term…mostly yuppies. The rest were farm animals.
Now it’s a virtue-signalling upper classes that are promoting fighting dogs as pets and using more vet services and there are more vets competing because now it is profitable–the world is turned on its head.
Having those with the financial resources to trash an expert opinion, can really put a dent in what is now a competitive and profitable business.
The country vet has gone the way of the dodo. Many specialise in cats, dogs, surgery, pet ophthalmology/dentistry/etc in the new world of Pets First.