What had changed? By 1964, the association between smoking and cancer had appeared consistently across study after study. Heavier smokers suffered more cancer than lighter smokers, and cancer was most likely at the point of contact between tobacco and human tissue; cigarette smokers got more lung cancer, pipe smokers more lip cancer. Ex-smokers were less prone to cancer than smokers who kept up the habit. All these factors combined to lead the surgeon general’s committee to the conclusion that smoking was not just correlated with lung cancer, but caused lung cancer, and that efforts to reduce
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