Doctor Says Smoking Not Harmful to Heart

Smoking may not be hazardous to your health. Despite recent reports linking cigarette smoking to heart disease, a doctor at the School of Public Health disagrees.

Dr. Carl C. Seltzer '29, a senior research associate at the School of Public Health, has stated that he could find no "pathological or epidemiological evidence supporting the contention that cigarette smoking and coronary heart ailments are connected in any way."

Relationship Not Clear

"I believe that the state of our knowledge is what it was in 1964, when the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Heart Ailments said that it was not clear that there was any causal relationship between smoking and heart disease," Seltzer said.

"I feel that the U.S. Public Health Service and the American Heart Association are needlessly frightening the American public as to any danger or risk of heart disease from cigarette smoking," he added.

Seltzer came to a similar conclusion in a 1968 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, where he used statistical evidence to support his conclusions.