Brief Chronology

  • 1912 --The Marine Hospital Service reorganized as the U.S. Public Health Service
  • 1913 --R. J. Reynolds launched Camel, the first modern mass-produced cigarette made from blended tobacco
  • 1917 --Cigarettes included in the field rations of American soldiers in World War I
  • 1928 --Herbert L. Lombard and Carl R. Doering offered the first detailed statistical data showing a higher proportion of heavy smokers among lung cancer patients than among controls
  • 1929 --U.S. Surgeon General Hugh S. Cumming (1920-1936) cautioned that smoking causes nervousness and insomnia, particularly among women
  • 1938 --Raymond Pearl demonstrated statistically that smoking shortens life expectancy
  • 1941-45 --Tobacco supplied to American servicemen in World War II
  • 1942 --In-vitro experiments established that tars, solid particles of partially burnt tobacco, can act directly on cells to produce neoplasm, or new and abnormal growth
  • 1953 --Ernest Wynder, a researcher at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, painted smoke condensate on the skin of mice, producing cancerous tumors in 44 percent of the animals
  • 1957 --Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney (1956-1961) declared it to be the official position of the U.S. Public Health Service that a causal relationship exists between smoking and lung cancer (June 12)
  • 1964 --Surgeon General Luther L. Terry (1961-65) issued Smoking and Health, the first Surgeon General's report to receive widespread media and public attention (January 11)
  • 1965 --Congress mandated health warnings on cigarette packs
  • 1968 --The Office of the Surgeon General was abolished and the position became that of an advisor to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, and to the Assistant Secretary of Health. The Surgeon General no longer directly administered the U.S. Public Health Service
  • 1969 --The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act passed in Congress. It imposed a ban on cigarette advertising on television and radio after September 30, 1970, and required that the Surgeon General produce an annual report on the latest scientific findings on the health effects of smoking
  • 1973 --Arizona passed the first state law designating separate smoking areas in public places
  • 1979 --Surgeon General Julius B. Richmond (1977-1981) issued Healthy People: The Surgeon General's Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, emphasizing the role of nutrition, exercise, environmental factors, and occupational safety in advancing health
  • 1980 --With the report Maternal and Infant Health, the Surgeon General took up a subject that has been a focus of federal social policy since the creation of the Children's Bureau in 1912
  • 1981 --Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) first diagnosed
  • 1983 --Lung cancer surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of death from cancer in women
  • 1986 --Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (1981-89) released The Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, describing AIDS as a preventable, manageable chronic disease
  • 1987 --The Office of the Surgeon General was reestablished with the Surgeon General as supervisor of the personnel system of the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service
  • 1987 --Congress banned smoking on all domestic flights of two hours or less; two years later smoking was banned on all domestic flights
  • 1992 --The Environmental Protection Agency placed passive smoke on its list of major carcinogens, making it subject to federal workplace and other regulations
  • 1999 --Surgeon General David Satcher (1998-2002) published Mental Health, marking an expansion of the Surgeon General's concerns beyond a predominant focus on diseases of the body
  • 2000 --California became the first state to ban smoking in bars and restaurants