Viewed from the perspective of public health, the report of the advisory committee was a landmark. Within two years, Congress had required manufacturers to place health warnings on all cigarette packs. In 1971, cigarette advertisements were banned from radio and television. The percentage of US adults who smoke declined from its all-time maximum of 45 percent in 1965 to 19.3 percent in 2010. The antismoking campaign has been one of the largest and most successful, though painfully slow and incomplete, public health interventions in history.
