[xoxoxoBruce]

January '64, CBC broadcast in Canada.

The name of the 1964 surgeon general's report is Smoking and Health. But given many of its conclusions, the long-awaited document might well be titled Smoking and Death. The report says that smoking cigarettes is a hazard to health, and that male smokers in the study were 10 times more likely than non-smokers to die of lung cancer. In this CBC Radio clip, a Canadian tobacco company president says the report won't change things in Canada.
John Keith of Imperial Tobacco calls the report "an interpretation" of already familiar studies, and that it requires further review. But others urge immediate action in light of the report. The American Cancer Society says doctors should advise their patients of the risks of smoking. It also recommends more research to help people quit and to eliminate the cancer-causing agents in cigarettes.
Reached by telephone, Canada's minister of Health and Welfare, Judy LaMarsh, says the Canadian government has already set aside money to research smoking. But her primary goal is to prevent young people from starting the habit. Meanwhile, in a Toronto poolroom, young men say the report means nothing to them and that they're not likely to give it up. "I don't believe in that lung cancer stuff," says one.
The U.S. surgeon general's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health first met in November 1962. Ten scientists were recruited by the surgeon general's office to review all the evidence about the effects of smoking.

• The committee was careful to keep its findings secret until the final report was released. All the smokers on the committee pledged not to quit smoking during their research. They didn't want to seem to be making a premature statement about their findings.

• The committee was considered more credible than past panels because the tobacco industry had been given the opportunity to vet its members in advance.

• Smoking and Health was released on Jan. 11, 1964 – a Saturday. The committee feared a weekday release would make the stock market plunge but also wanted maximum coverage in Sunday newspapers.

• The committee's study found that compared with non-smokers, "many kinds of damage to body functions and to organs, cells and tissues occur more frequently and severely in smokers."

• It also concluded that "cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer in men... The data for women, though far less extensive, points in the same direction." The report also found a less conclusive link to coronary disease in smokers.

• The report also found some benefits in smoking, though they were far outweighed by the risks. According to the book Ashes to Ashes, by Richard Kluger, smoking seemed "to promote 'good intestinal tone and bowel habits,' i.e., had laxative effects, and served to counter obesity."

• Cigarettes also seemed to have a tranquilizing effect, energizing the tired and calming the agitated. It deemed cigarettes "a psychological crutch" for much of the population.

• The surgeon general is a medical doctor appointed to a four-year term by the U.S. president. He or she reports to the country's assistant secretary of health. The Office of the Surgeon General oversees the U.S. Public Health Service and is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

• There is no position in Canada equivalent to the surgeon general.

• The surgeon general's report was mostly a confirmation of conclusions the Canadian Medical Association had already drawn. When the 1964 report came out, Dr. William Wigle, president of the CMA, told the Globe and Mail that its position on smoking had not changed since a major Canadian conference in 1963.

• Doctors did feel that the report would bolster Canadian efforts to discourage smoking.

• Dr. Wigle said the most important action was for tobacco companies to restrict advertising so that youth would not take up smoking. "Youngsters should not be led to believe that they will be more socially acceptable, more romantically acceptable and more employable if they smoke," he said.

• Wigle said he favoured education, not prohibition, as a means to decrease smoking among youth.

Only a slight hijack.