Health Consequences of Smoking; The Changing Cigarette. A Report of the Surgeon General

摘要

This is the fourteenth report on the health consequences of smoking which the Public Health Service has issued since 1964 and the third to be issued during my term as Surgeon General. By Congressional directive it considers the relative health effects of cigarettes with varying levels of 'tar' and nicotine and the relative health effects of cigarette additives. At the present time, a third of all smokers, some 18 million persons, are smoking cigarettes with measured yields of less than 15 mg 'tar', and this number is increasing by approximately 5 percent per year. Most of these persons have changed to lower yield cigarettes in the expectation that this will somehow reduce the hazards of their smoking. It is in the interest of these persons, and in the public interest, to know to what extent these expectations are justified.