About the Surgeon General's Report

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Full Report in Adobe Acrobat Format ( PDF-240K)

The Surgeon General is appointed by the President of the United States to help promote and protect the health of our citizens. As the nation’s highest-ranking public health officer, the Surgeon General can direct studies on health risks—such as smoking.

The 2004 Surgeon General’s Report on the Health Consequences of Smoking was prepared by 19 of the country’s top scientists, doctors, and public health experts. The full report is nearly 1,000 pages long and took more than 3 years to complete. It is written for a scientific audience. However, the Surgeon General believes that the findings are very important to everyone and asked that this booklet be created. This booklet explains what the report says and what it
means to you.

Suggested Citation:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Offi ce on Smoking and Health, 2004.

 

Since the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health in 1964, medical experts have written 27 more reports for the Surgeon General on tobacco use. In each report, leading scientists have found that using tobacco causes people to become sick, disabled, or to die.

This report goes even further in detailing the bad health effects of smoking. Everyone knows smoking hurts you. This report shows that it is worse than you know.

Costs of Smoking in Dollars and Lives

The Surgeon General of the United States, working with a team of leading experts on smoking and health, released a new report in 2004. After reviewing scientific evidence, researchers reached these important conclusions:

• Smoking harms nearly every organ of your body. It causes diseases and worsens your health.
   
• Quitting smoking has many benefits. It lowers your risk for diseases and death caused by smoking and improves your health.
   
• Low-tar and low-nicotine cigarettes are not safer to smoke.
   
• The list of diseases that we know are caused by smoking has grown even longer. The list now includes cancers of the cervix, pancreas, kidneys, and stomach, aortic aneurysms, leukemia, cataracts, pneumonia, and gum disease.
   

The 2004 Surgeon General’s report has new information about how smoking harms your health. A new database of more than 1,600 articles cited in this report is available on the Internet. By going to the CDC Web site you can search many of the studies cited in this report. Topics include cancer, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, reproductive effects, and other harmful health effects.
 

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This page last reviewed May 25, 2004

United States Department of Health and Human Services
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Office on Smoking and Health