264 THE CHINA STUDY
Before leaving, I arranged for her to send me a copy of the memo she
was referring to, and, in a day or so, she did.
The memo had been sent from the office of the national president of
the American Cancer Society, who also was a senior executive of the pres-
tigious Roswell Park Memorial Institute for Cancer Research in Buffalo.
This memo alleged that the scientific "chair" of the organization, without
naming me, was heading up a group of "eight or nine" discredited physi-
cians, several of whom had spent time in prison. It was total fabrication.
I didn't even recognize the names of these discredited physicians and had
no idea how something so vicious could have gotten started.
After snooping around a little more, I discovered the person in the
American Cancer Society office in Buffalo who was responsible for the
memo. I phoned him. Not surprisingly, he was evasive and only said
that he had gotten this information from an unnamed reporter. It was
impossible to trace the original source. The one thing I do know for
sure was that this memo was distributed by the office of the American
Cancer Society's president.
I also learned that the National Dairy Council, a powerful industry
lobbying group, had obtained a copy of the same memo and proceeded
to distribute a notice of its own to its local offices around the country.
The smear campaign against the AICR was widespread. The food, phar-
maceutical and medical industries through and/or parallel to the Ameri-
can Cancer Society and the National Dairy Council were showing their
true colors. Prevention of cancer with low-cost, low-profit plant foods
was not welcomed by the food and pharmaco-medical industries. With
support from a trusting media, their combined power to influence the
public was overwhelming.PERSONAL CONSEQUENCES
The ending of this story, however, is a happy one. Although the AICR's
first couple of years were turbulent and difficult for me both personally
and profeSSionally, the smear campaigns finally started to wane. No lon-
ger considered "on the fringe," the AICR has now expanded to England
(the World Cancer Research Fund, WCRF, in London) and elsewhere.
For over twenty years now, the AICR has run a program that funds
research and education projects on the link between diet and cancer. I
initially organized and chaired that grant program, and then continued
as the AICR's senior science advisor for several years, in a few different
stints, after its initial founding.