Clarence Cook Little

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Clarence Cook Little -- generally known in tobacco circles as "Pete Little", was a famous geneticist who had founded the Jackson Memorial Laboratory in Bar Harbour, Maine. The laboratory specialized in genetic studies.

In his declining years he was hired by the tobacco industry to front their Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) and he appears to have been taken in by their clever manipulations of science and the scientists. Given the length of time and the difference in circumstances, it is difficult to know how much he deliberately played the industry game -- and how much of his apparent complicity with the tobacco companies was sheer gullibility brought on by declining mental faculties in his old age.

His second marriage to a flamboyant, spend-thrift, socially-conscious woman left him constantly short of money, so this threat of potential destitution may also have contributed to his attitude.

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Biography

Clarence Cook Little was Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1888.

Little graduated from Harvard University in 1914 with BA, MS, and a Doctor of Science. He then embarked on a career in university administration, first as a dean at Harvard, then as president of the University of Maine and the University of Michigan.

C.C. Little served as scientific director of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC). In 1947, his laboratory building burned down and 90,000 specially-bred mice perished with the loss of 15 years of careful inbreeding. He appears to have seen this as a religious sign -- a life-changing epiphany which gave him more religious leanings.

Edwin B. Wilson, a Harvard School of Public Health statistician, was a lifelong friend and associate of Little who called him by his nickname "Pete." Wilson had once been the vice president of the National Academy of Sciences. The tobacco archives contain a number of his letters sending advice and gossip to Little and other TIRC staff.

Tobacco industry involvement

In 1959 Little retired as full-time director of the Jackson Laboratory, and continued as Scientific Director of the TIRC.

Stance on smoking

Little appeared to be uncertain about whether smoking was a cause of cancer, and made a number of contradictory statements on this topic during a 1959 deposition. A 1963 article in New Yorker Magazine that examined the evidence about smoking and disease reported that "Dr. Little [as head of the TIRC] has consistently maintained that the relationship between smoking and health has been insufficiently investigated and is too complex to warrant a conclusion that smoking is a cause of lung cancer or other diseases." Little further believed that genetic, hormonal, emotional or other factors could contribute to lung cancer and maintained that the cause of lung cancer was "still unknown." Dr. Little made these comments even after the British government had for the previous year been engaging in an extensive publicity campaign warning people that cigarette smoking was dangerous to health. The UK government had by this time distributed a million posters to schools, clinics and post offices that bore the warning "Before You Smoke, THINK. Cigarettes Cause Lung Cancer."

However this public stance may not have represented his real views. In 1958 three representatives from the United Kingdom's Tobacco Manufacturers Standing Committee (TMSC, the UK equivalent of the TIRC) went to the United States and met with the scientific directors of TIRC and the various tobacco companies in confidential interviews. The visitors had a check-list of questions that they asked each of the scientists they met, and at the top of this list was: "the extent to which it is accepted that cigarette smoke 'causes' lung cancer." Clarence Cook Little was one of those interviewed at length. Their report back to the TMSC summarizes the actual scientific opinion at this time:

With one exception (H.S.N. Greene) the individuals whom we met believed that smoking causes lung cancer if by "causation" we mean any chain of events which leads finally to lung cancer and which involves smoking as an indispensable link. In the USA only Berkson, apparently, is not prepared to doubt the statistical evidence and his reasoning is nowhere thought to be sound.

C.C. Little was not included in the list of disbelievers.

Comments

1991/E An interview conducted by Richard Kluger of the WSJ (for the book Ashes to Ashes) with Paul Kotin about the industry personalities makes many observations about Little, along with Seltzer.(Constitutionl) Hockett, Sommers, Little, Gori, Hammond, TWG, Wynder, Ochener, Doll-Hill, TIRC CTR, Leuchtenburgers, Homberger, Endicott (NCI alcoholic smoker), AMA-ERF, Phillip Morris (Jewish company), and Wakeham. (Kotin was highly critial of CCL) [2]

Peter Hamill's (Director 1964 Sur Gen Advisory Commttee) had a different view, Hamil was told by his "most reliable friends, colleagues" that CCL was "a very good scientist and an honorable man. That made a lot of difference. CCL was warm and disarming and just... he was just a super guy... absolutely extraordinary. CCL's concern about genetic as key factor, the point of his life's work really. CCL invited to send whatever might be helpful to SGAC. [3]

Documents & Timeline

1929-1945 CC Little wasManaging Director of what is now the American Cancer Society (American Society for the Control of Cancer)

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 ?? President of the Universities of Maine and Michigan,

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1953-59 Howard B Andervont and fellow tobacco industry SAB member Edwin B. Wilson were directors and scientific directors of CC Little's Jackson Laboratory (Roscoe B Jackson Memorial Laboratory) during 1953-59. Hugh Knowlton of the tobacco industry's main PR firm Hill & Knowlton was the President. H&K set up the Tobacco Institute Research Center as a front.

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1971 Dec 22 CC Little Died. Tribute paid to him in Zahn press release. [See about 30% into long document] [4]

Sourcewatch resources

• Council for Tobacco Research
• Tobacco Industry Research Committee
• Front groups

External resources and tobacco industry documents

• Clarence Cook Little's Wikipedia entry
• R.B. Seligman, Vice President of R & D at Philip Morris Meeting in New York - November 15, 1978, 1978 analysis of the public relations value of tobacco industry-funded research groups like TIRC by tobacco lawyers Shook, Hardy and Bacon
• Kaczynski, Stephen J; Crist, Paul G; Marple, William E.;Abrams, Thomas L. Report Regarding Corporate Activity Project 462 pages. Undated. Bates No. 681879254/9715. An extensive analysis of the tobacco industry's legal vulnerabilities based on past behavior, written by tobacco industry lawyers for internal benefit of the industry.

References

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