Warnings on cigarette packages had started appearing in 1965 following the 1964 report, “Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States.”
The report, released on a Saturday to minimize impact on the stock market and to maximize the coverage by the press in Sunday’s edition, offered one of the first official damning pieces of evidence against big tobacco. Findings concluded that smokers had a much higher mortality rate than non-smokers, greater incidences of heart disease, emphysema and lung cancer. It also concluded that pregnant smokers were more likely to give birth to underweight babies and that smoking was the primary cause of chronic bronchitis.
