was on 11 January 1964, when Luther Terry, the highest health authority of the United States, showed that cigarettes were harmful to health. A watershed date beyond which began the first state intervention against the multinational manufacturers
Fifty years later, the document remains Terry one of the most important in the history of public health in America. Before that day – in the 50s – had been published research on the dangers of smoking, but the multinationals seemed untouchable: the tobacco industry introduced the filters and in 1954 made a massive advertising campaign to deny the link between smoking and cancer. Occasion, however, was the first direct involvement of the state against the powerful lobby of cigarettes. In these fifty years the tobacco control has paid off. The number of smokers in the U.S. has increased from 50% to 18% of the population, although there are still 43 million smokers in the country. Luther Terry, during the presentation of his study showed that the harmfulness of cigarettes (p)
“It was the beginning,” said Kenneth Warner, a professor at the University of Michigan, the highest U.S. authorities on issues related to smoking and health. Certainly was not the end because the battle was just about to commence. In 1966 to demonstrate the dangers associated with the use of cigarettes was made an experiment on dogs to demonstrate the link between smoking and emphysema. In the following decades began the war of the state against the tobacco multinationals: the first warnings appeared on packets, the advertising was banned, the sales taxes were raised and put new restrictions on where you could turn on a blonde .
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