OKLAHOMA CITY:—Snuff dipping at incidents of deadly tongue cancer has increased almost simultaneously among young US. Males, a California researcher said Friday in a $143 million suit against the makers of Copenhagen stuff.
“This trend indicates to me the beginning of an epidemic,” said Lester Breslow, of the Johnson comprehensive cancer center in Los Angeles.
“The numbers are still small, but that is how an epidemic begins. It is too bad if you don’t pay attention to that.”
Breslow testified in the fifth day of trial in a suit filed by Betty Marsee, who claims her son Sean, 19, died from tongue cancer after using Copenhagen brand snuffed for six years.
A research scientist from India was scheduled to testify in the afternoon about the growth of oral cancer among his countrymen due to smokeless tobacco.
Citing the recent report on snuff by the surgeon general, Breslow said a Louisiana study showed that use of snuff in boys aged 8 and 9 increased almost 400 percent from 1976 to 1982.
And deaths of young men attributed to tongue cancer doubled from the 1960s to 1982, Breslow said.
Thursday Breslow cited literature dating to 1933 connecting snuff or oral cancer.
Marsee is attempting to prove that U.S. Tabaco of Greenwich, Conn knew or could have known that snuff caused cancer before Sean contracted mouth cancer; The suit says the company’s advertising promoted nicotine addiction in youths while ignoring the health hazards of the product
U.S. tobacco atomics have read in court excerpts from articles on tongue cancer in young people and contend that the disease is a “medical curiosity” that cannot compared to cancer in adults.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 30, 1986
