U.S. Surgeon General links smoking to cancer

On January 11, 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released the first federal report from his Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. Its conclusion was blunt for its era: cigarette smoking was a cause of lung cancer and laryngeal cancer in men, a probable cause of lung cancer in women, and the most important cause of chronic bronchitis.

The verdict was not a hunch. A committee of ten experts had spent more than a year combing through over 7,000 scientific articles with help from some 150 consultants, meeting at the National Library of Medicine. Terry deliberately announced the findings on a Saturday to limit the immediate shock to tobacco stocks and the press cycle.

The report is often called the moment science began driving tobacco policy. Within years it spurred mandatory health warnings on cigarette packs and restrictions on advertising. U.S. adult smoking rates, around 42% at the time, have fallen sharply in the decades since, a public-health shift traced directly back to this document.