News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, Jan. 10, 2003 |
Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6637
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Marking 40th Anniversary of Smoking Reports,
Secretary Thompson and Surgeon General Carmona Announce
Comprehensive New Report
and Continually Updating Database
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson and Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona today announced that they will issue a comprehensive new report on tobacco and health this year and add a new weapon in the battle against disease and mortality caused by smoking - a continually updating database of information of tobacco-caused disease and proven approaches for helping people avoid tobacco use.
The new report and database were announced as the nation marked the 40th anniversary of the first Surgeon General's Report on Smoking, by then-Surgeon General Luther Terry, which for the first time linked smoking with lung cancer. Including that report, Surgeons General have released a total of 27 reports outlining the negative health effects of smoking.
The 28th report, to be issued this year by Secretary Thompson and Surgeon General Carmona, "The Health Consequences of Smoking," will examine the effects of tobacco on every system of the human body. In addition, the Office of the Surgeon General would create a new database of medical research, treatment and prevention information, to make the most recent findings continually available to professionals and the public.
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said the new report and continually-updating data approach "will provide a new level of support and comprehensiveness in helping us understand the health effects of tobacco and helping Americans avoid this single most significant preventable cause of death and disease."
Secretary Thompson and Surgeon General Carmona made the following statement commemorating the anniversary of the first Surgeon General's Report on Smoking, January 11, 1964:
STATEMENT BY HHS SECRETARY TOMMY G. THOMPSON:
I urge each and every American who smokes to quit. Make it a New Year's resolution and a daily commitment to live a longer, healthier life- without cigarettes. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your family and for your loved ones.
Forty years after the first Surgeon General's report on smoking, the fact remains the same: Smoking remains the single leading preventable cause of death in this country, costing us too many lives, too many dollars, and too many tears. Every day more than 4,000 children smoke their first cigarette and every year more than 440,000 moms, dads, sons and daughters die because of their lifelong decision to smoke. The science is clear that by quitting smoking, a person becomes healthier within just a matter of hours as the carbon monoxide level in the blood drops to normal, and after a year excess risk of heart disease is cut in half.
I look forward to the next Surgeon General's report on smoking coming out later this year, which will continue to outline the health effects of smoking and further educate the American people about the dangers of this lethal habit.
STATEMENT BY SURGEON GENERAL RICHARD H. CARMONA:
Luther Terry's watershed report released on January 11, 1964, documented that smoking causes lung cancer and began to dispel the myth that smoking is cool, but instead exposed it as a killer. At that time, the scientific body of knowledge about tobacco use was limited, but today we know that tobacco use has a devastating health impact on the body.
Smoking kills 440,000 Americans every year, costing each of them more than a decade of their lives. In addition, more than 8.6 million Americans currently suffer from one or more serious illness attributable to cigarette smoking, with direct health care costs reaching a staggering $75 billion a year. And sadly, every day more than 4,000 kids smoke their first cigarette, taking their first deadly puff.
As Surgeon General, my job is to present the best available science to the American people. Since 1965 Surgeons General have been warning Americans about the dangers of smoking on every single cigarette pack sold in the United States.
In addition, within the next few months I will be releasing the 28th Surgeon General's report on the health consequences of smoking, which will provide new information about the impact that smoking has on health. With it, I will also release the first-ever database of scientific research on the hazards of smoking, which can be instantly updated as new science becomes available. Using this technology, once a threshold of danger is met, we can immediately alert the American people of new or more serious hazards of smoking.
In short, smoking remains the most preventable cause of death and disease in the nation. Those who smoke need to quit, and we need to work together to get kids to stop starting.
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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.
Last Revised: January 16, 2004
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