The health consequences of smoking : the changing cigarette / a report of the Surgeon General.

  • United States. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and Surgeon General.
Date:
[1981]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The health consequences of smoking : the changing cigarette / a report of the Surgeon General. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/276
    These findings raise important questions of public policy. Some appear to be easily resolved. It should be possible to work out procedures so that cigarette manufacturers can disclose the additives they use while still protecting their legitimate interest in trade secrets; an effort to accomplish this is now underway. It should also be possible to develop better methodologies to measure smoke constituents, although no machine will ever be able to duplicate human smoking behavior exactly. And longitudinal surveys are now being carried on in an effort to monitor smoking behavior, and to help answer some of the behavioral questions raised in this Report. Other questions pose greater difficulty. A common thread running through the sections of the Report is that too much reliance in the past has been placed on the nonselective measure of “tar” as a measure of risk to the neglect of other constituents and approaches to risk assessment. Additional epidemiologic and bioassay work is required, as is a better definition of the fundamental mechanisms of smoking- related disease. Further study is necessary to examine the addictive nature of smoking and its impact on initiation, maintenance, and cessation, especially in light of the recent statement of the National Drug Abuse Advisory Council that cigarette smoking is addictive. These questions cannot be answered quickly or without expenditure of scientific resources. The questions raised by this Report suggest action in both the public and private sector. In the research community, a research plan is needed to enable us to monitor the changing cigarette and to answer the many research questions put forth in this Report, with special emphasis on the issues of initiation and cessation. New measures and markers of relative toxicity are needed to supplement “tar” and nicotine. As stated, a voluntary disclosure and testing program needs to be developed with cigarette manufacturers to assess the relative health risks of cigarette additives and to protect against new hazards. In the regulatory area, this Report suggests the need to increase the public’s access to information about the product it buys. Advertise- ments and packages alike should display yield figures more prominent- ly, including measures of carbon monoxide and possibly other hazard- ous ingredients. Marketing terms such as “low-low” and “ultra-low” need to be standardized. In the area of public information and education, much more needs to _ be done both by the Government and by private health and educational agencies. The overriding objective must be to persuade young people not to take up smoking and to encourage present smokers to quit. Smokers of the lower yield cigarettes should be warned not to begin smoking more cigarettes or inhaling more deeply. Preg iant women should be cautioned that lower yield cigarettes are not an alternative to quitting.