“Nothing New In Report”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30338, 14 January 1964, Page 10

“Nothing New In Report”

CN.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN, Jan. 13. The report of America’s top scientists emphasised the need to educate the public to the sinister significance of smoking, Professor E. D. d’Ath said in Dunedin today.

Professor D’Ath, a former professor of pathology at the University of Otago Medical School, said there was nothing new m the American report that cigarette smoking

was a cause of lung cancer and also contributed to mortality from certain other diseases. It was along the lines of the English finding, made public by the Royal College of Physicians two years ago.

"It reinforces what we have already come to understand," he said. But it also emphasised the need for a careful appraisal of the problem by the individual and the community. The main thing was to educate young people not to take up smoking, Dr. D’Ath said. Work of this sort was already being done. Sir Gordon Bell, chairman

of the Otago-Southland division of the Cancer Campaign Society, and Mr John Borrie, a thoracic surgeon, also saw the report as a confirmation of earlier findings The Health Department was well aware of the association between smoking and lung cancer, Mr Borrie said. Through education in schools, and notices in public places, it had worked in the last three years to acquaint people of the danger. It was particularly nd to see people bereft by the debth of someone only in their late thirties when it was preventable, Mr Borrie said.