Franklin Roosevelt’s long cigarette holder held the same lethal cancer-causing cigarettes as the ones inhaled by the man on the street. Tobacco has always been an equal opportunity destroyer.
Consumption of booze and smokes increased in the 1930s as prohibition vanished and the economic depression worsened. But even then, in the midst of rampant unemployment, malnutrition and homelessness, addiction to nicotine and its effects on the human body were questioned by medical researchers.
It wasn’t a new concern. Although King James 1st in the 16th century thought tobacco, “loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs,” it became the mainstay of Virginia and Maryland economy in the 17th and 18th centuries, and has been strongly identified with the history of the Chesapeake Bay. Profits have often collided with principles in the development of our nation. Slavery was a lucrative business. So was growing tobacco.
Research reports of the 1930s, indicating that smoking caused a decline in physical and mental efficiency, were largely ignored. But researchers labored on during the war years and into the 1950s, confirming statistical relationships of smoking to lung cancer, bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease.
The public, however, was captivated by cigarette advertisements featuring fearless cowboys, handsome men in uniform, and beautiful women at the seashore, personified by the Virginia Slims Cigarette girl celebrating women’s right to smoke, “We’ve come a long way, baby.”
Smoking was accepted. Thousands of physicians smoked. And during the war, hometown newspapers often sent cigarettes to men and women in uniform, provided by tobacco companies. It seemed the nation was addicted to nicotine, and that most citizens viewed smoking as a harmless, social habit; some even thought it a bit glamorous.
Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney’s report in 1957 that the U.S. Public Health Service had evidence of a causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer was denounced as alarmist by Tobacco companies. Its executives blamed the rising rate of lung cancer and emphysema on asbestos contamination, air pollution, and most anything but cigarette smoking. Their denials persisted for decades, culminating in the spectacle of tobacco company presidents assuring a congressional committee in unison that they had never been made aware of nicotine’s harm to those who smoked.
Persistent efforts of a coalition in 1961, headed by the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association, persuaded President John Kennedy to convene a national commission on smoking. Surgeon General Luther L. Terry invited the Tobacco Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the American Medical Society to join the effort. Ten representatives from diverse fields were named to the commission. None had publicly stated their views on tobacco use. They included experts from pharmacology and medicine, but not psychology.
Consultants helped the commission review more than 7,000 scientific articles and studies between 1962 through 1964. Knowing the report would stir the political pot and upset the tobacco industry, Terry selected a Saturday to announce the commission’s findings to minimize the immediate effect on the stock market.
Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, was front page news and the lead story on radio and television. It said cigarette smoking was responsible for a 70 percent increase in the mortality of smokers over non-smokers, and that smokers were at high-risk of developing lung cancer, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and coronary heart disease
The public paid heed. Gallup compared its poll in 1958, when only 44 percent of the people believed smoking caused cancer, to its 1968 poll, when 78 percent believed it. Angered rather than chastised, the tobacco industry applied enormous pressure on elected representatives from tobacco-growing states, as well as the White House. Scientists were paid handsome sums to write articles questioning the commission’s conclusions.
When John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, sought support from the White House for placing warning labels on cigarettes, President Johnson put a big arm around Gardner’s shoulder as he escorted him from the Oval Office, “Now, John, howd’ya feel if your pappy was a tobacca farmer?”
Postmaster General Larry O’Brien made silly excuses for failing to place a public service banner on Postal vehicles that read, “100,000 doctors have stopped smoking.” Tobacco companies remained in denial, even as warning labels on cigarette packages were finally approved: “Smoking may be dangerous to your health.” They responded by stepping up marketing efforts to recruit young smokers and paid celebrities huge fees for touting their products, and producers for using them on stage and in films.
Yes, graphic, disturbing photos of tobacco’s devastating consequences will appear on cigarette packages this year. They will present a realistic picture for the first time, affirming that King James’ assessment was spot on centuries ago, and fulfilling the Virginia Slims girl’s proclamation in a way she could not have imagined: we have come a long way, baby.
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Carlton E. Spitzer
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