The 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health
- In 1941, Drs. Alton Ochsner and Michael DeBakey published their observations on the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. For many years, they and the handful of outspoken physician opponents of cigarettes were met with indifference or ridicule within the medical profession, doubtless in part due to the fact that well into the 1950s more than two-thirds of doctors smoked.
- In 1964, the Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General on Smoking and Health reviewed the medical literature and summarized the devastating scientific case against smoking. The Surgeon General’s report concluded that cigarette smoking was the major cause of lung cancer in men and was causally related to laryngeal and oral cancer.
Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health (14:19)
Video clip of press conference given by U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry, MD, to announce the findings of the Report on Smoking and Health, which concluded that cigarette smoking was the main cause of lung cancer
January 11, 1964
“The Great Cigarette Mystery: Old-Time Melodrama”
Draper Hill
The Worcester Evening Gazette (Massachusetts)
January 15, 1964
“From the very beginning, I had a sense that if I played my cards right, smoking could be a money-making proposition. While waiting on line at Colonial Williamsburg with a fellow sophomore of my high school class to watch the instruments of torture and punishment, he bet $5 that I couldn’t smoke a cigarette all the way to the end. I did, and that was the end of smoking for me. I collected the $5, which in terms of the odds, risks, and expenditures, was a pretty good career move.”
–Draper Hill (1935-2009; Editorial cartoonist of The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts) and Worcester Evening Gazette (Massachusetts), 1958-1964; The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 1971-1976; and The Detroit News, 1976-1999)
“Happy 30th anniversary, stupid.”
Milt Priggee
The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington)
January 13, 1994
“WARNING: SMOKERS DEVELOP A SLIGHT WHEEZE COMMONLY MISTAKEN FOR A HUSKY, SEXY VOICE”
Tom Darcy (1932-2000)
Newsday
June 27, 1983
(Darcy was the editorial cartoonist at Newsday from 1969 to 1997.)
“Cigaret Box”
Herb Block
The Washington Post
January 1964
“YOU’RE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH”
Bob Englehart
Hartford Courant
May 27, 1984