784 - The Inside Story of the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report That Changed How Americans Viewed Smoking

Public Health On Call

About this episode:

In 1964, an advisory committee to the Surgeon General issued a report on smoking and disease that was so damning, it had to be released with cloak-and-dagger preparations on a Saturday so as not to disrupt the stock market. 60 years later, the report remains one of the most important scientific documents of the 20th century. Today: the inside history of a committee and a report that changed the trajectory of tobacco use in America—a report that almost didn’t happen.

Guest:

Donald Shopland is one of the original staff members of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. It was his first job out of high school. Since then, Shopland has had a career as a public health advisor in the field of smoking and tobacco and has assisted with dozens of Surgeon General’s reports on links between smoking and disease. He is the author of Clearing the Air: The Untold Story of the 1964 Report on Smoking and Health, available for free here.

Host:

Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a faculty member in health policy, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland’s Health Department.

Show links and related content:

• Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service (PDF)

• Historic Public Health Report Marks 60th Anniversary—NIH Record

• Clearing the Air: The Untold Story of the 1964 Report on Smoking and Health (book)—UCSF Health Humanities

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