Landmark Conclusions On this date in 1964, then-U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry released the first Surgeon General's report on smoking and health. This 387-page report, wrapped in brown paper, was the first official U.S. acknowledgment that cigarette smoking causes cancer and other serious diseases. The report was released on a Saturday because advisers to President Lyndon B. Johnson feared that the conclusions could have a disastrous effect on Wall Street. The Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health concluded that cigarette smoking causes lung and laryngeal cancer in men, probably causes lung cancer in women and is a key cause of chronic bronchitis. Stated the report, "Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action."
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