Tobacco Documents Online

Burson'Marsteller Position. paper Historic Awareness Third Draft 5/i0/88 CIGARETTE SMOKING AND HEALTH RISKS: FOUR CENTURIES OF INFORMATION AND PUBLIC AWARENESS. Everyone has heard about the alleged risks of smoking. Indeed, no consumer product ever marketed has been surrounded by more ~nformation regardiing its potential health hazards. The public has received this information through every conceivable medium including radio, television, movies, newspapers, magazines, books, sermons, pamphlets, lectures and brochures, as well as through, advice and word-of-mouth communications from physicians, teach.ers, coaches., parents and others. Smoking and health~ issues have been part of h,ealth education, pro:grams in virtually every state since the early 1900s and the su,b:ject of a wilde variety of programs conducted by various educational, social, medical, pol~tical and other groups. Early Warnilnqs The dissemination of anti-smoking! information is anything but a recent phenomenon. Indeed, claims of health risks associated with. smoking date back more than 400 years. As long ago as 16:04, England's K~ng James I issued, his Cou.nterblaste to Tobacco denouncing smoking as "a custom , loathesome to the eye, hatefu~ to the nose, harmful to the O brain, dangerous to the lungs . . ." ~

-2- From the ~ate 1.800's to the present,~ th,e United States has witnessed, a vocal revival o.f King James' opinion on smoking. Numerous we~l-organ~ized groups -- armed with pamphlets, school programs, f~ims, demonstrations, posters, no-smoking p~edge cards and' the like -- orchestrated, zealous campaigns against the use of tobacco in general and cig!arettes in particular. Organizations like the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Cigarette League, the International Boys & Girls Anti-C~garette League, the Life Extension ~nstitute, th.e Non.-Smokers Protective League, the Clean ~ife Army, and the NO-Tobacco Army we:re formed: for the express pu,rpose of combatting tobacco use. Such diverse religious org!an~zations as the American Society of Friends (Quakers)., the Methodist Church, Baptists, Mormons., YMCA, Salvation Army, Seventh. Day Adventists, and the Presbyterian Boa:rd of Temperance wagedl vigorous anti-smoking campaigns as part o4 their overall mission. Their efforts were complemented by anti-smoking crusad~es undertaken by a host of civic and ed:ucation groups including PTA's, the National Edu,cation Association, the Boy Scou,ts and the Girl Scouts. ~n addition to the many anti-smoking groups who campaigned against the use of tobacco, a variety of colorful and prom,inent individuals participated in the movement. For e×aaple, Lucy Page Gaston, a former I~linois school teacher and. founder of the International Anti-Cigarette League, sought the Republican nomination for President in 1920 on an. anti-tobacco platform. Dr. John Harvey Kellog of Battle Creek, publisher of Good Health magazine, utilized his publication as a vehicle for spread!ing his fervent anti-smoking message. Other well known individuals who campaigned vigorously against smoking in.cluded au,tomobile

-3- magnate Henry FOrd,: baseball great Ty Cobb:, boxers Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, and inventor Thomas Edison. The Warnings. Continue In more recent tilmes, the anti-smoking message has been spread primarily through the popular press. The Reader's D'i@est, one of the most widel;y-read magazines in the world, has been front and center in t~,is movement. As long ago as 1924, the editors o4 th,at publilcation embarked on a campaign to alert the public to the presumed dangers of smoking with an. article entitled "Does Tobacco In.ju,re th.e Human Body?" During the 19:50's the campaign intensified. For example, "Cancer by the Carton," an article published in. 1952, linked the reported increase in the: incidence of lung cancer to an increase in cigarette consumptions. An. article published in, Augu,st 1957, "Wanted - ~nd Available - Fi.lter-Tips That Really Filter," has been credited with. the tremendous growth in the sales of filter tip. cigarettes. The six-decade old~ R__eader's Digest campaign, which both urges smoking cessation and provides advice on how to quilt, continues to this day. In addition to the Reader's Digest, other widely-circulated magazines -- including Time, Newsweek, Good Houskeeping, and Consumer Reports -- closely tracked new events in the smoking: and health controversy. For example, the February 26, 1954 issue of U.S. News and World ~eport ran as its cover story an article entitled, "Is There Proof Smoking Causes Cancer?" This 10-page article contained an in-depth interview with Dr. E. Cuyler Hammond, then Director of Research for the American Cancer Society, and outlined, the

-4- steps the ACS was taking to determine if smoking was causally-related to lung cancer. In the decade following publication of that interview, U.S. News ran at least 18 follow-up articles. During the past two decades, the publicity attending claims o.f ch.ron.ic dlisease hazards said to be associated with. smoking~ has intensified. For example, there was widespread pu~blicity -- not only in the national med:ia, but also in "h,ometown" newspapers and magazines -- concerning the 1964 Report of The Advisory Comm,ittee to the Surgeon. General and su,bsequ~ent, similar reports about smoking. In addition, for more than. 20 years smokers have been, constantly and repeatedly informed of the health, risks attributed, to smoking through the warnings requ~ired on c~garette packages and in cigarette advertising~ by Federal Law. The Message Was Heard The n,~merous activities undertaken by anti-smoking groups, with the: attendant widespread publicity, have not gone: unnoticed. To the contrary, the message has been recognized and accepted by the American. public. For example:, in response to intense lobbying efforts by anti-smoking org~anizations, 15 states banned the sale of cigarettes for various, periods between 1895 and 1927. While these prohibitions were eventually repealed, virtually every state retained some ~egis~ative restrictions on the sa~e of tobacco, especially to minors. In addition, many states have required instruction on. tobacco use as part of the standard elementary and/or high school cu,rrilculum, since the early 1900's.

-5- Awareness o~ the risks of smoking is also reflected in, the many epithets which have been coined to describe cigarettes.. The term "coffin na~is", ~or example, can be traced back to 18186. Terms such as "cancer stick," "poison sausage," "little wh,ite slaver,," "smoker's cough," and "n[cotfne fit" are also firmly establishedi in the folklore o~ this country. Perhaps the most direct evidence that the message~ has been~ heard is found in the results of public opinion polls on smoking and health ~ssues. The earliest scientifical~y- designed polls were conducted during the late 1940's and showed that the public was well aware of the alleged hazards of smoking. According to a 1949 Gallup poll, for instance, more than half of all cigarette smokers believed that smoking was h.arm.ful to their health.. In~ 1954 -- the year in which the ~merican Cancer Society ~or the first time "cautio~sly" voiced its "su~spicion" that cigarette smoking had something to do with lung cancer "to a degree as yet undetermined" -- a poll showed that almost 90 percent of the publ~c had recently heard %hat cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. These and other surveys conf~rm the blunt observation of a close neighbor of a smoker involved in a tobacco ~iability case who testified that "you would have to live in a cave" to: avoid hearing claims of health risks associated with smoking. That statement applies to anyone living in the civilized world during the last 400 years. To believe otherwise is quite simply a den~ia~l of historical fact. To: be sure, many people may have disagreed with various health risk allegations or have chosen to continue smoking,~ but no one could have escaped, them.