Smoking and Health Council Report

Our plain-English summary of Smoking and Health Council Report (1980).

The study

• Published: JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 243 No8. February 22-29, 1980
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This item was a 1980 report from the American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs, published in JAMA. It was a policy statement on cigarette smoking, not a research study, and it did not discuss asbestos. The report reviewed past AMA actions on smoking. It described antismoking work by voluntary health agencies, federal agencies and the AMA, including a research program the AMA Educational Research Foundation ran under an agreement with six tobacco companies. It passed on conclusions of the 1979 Surgeon General's Report. Among them: illness and death were higher in cigarette smokers than in nonsmokers, and blue collar workers were especially susceptible to the combined additive effects of smoking and exposure to toxic industrial agents. The article does not name those agents. The Council stated that smoking continued to be a causal factor in chronic disease in the United States. It recommended that physicians stop smoking and routinely ask patients about their smoking. It also recommended that the AMA urge Congress to make package health warnings more explicit.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Policy report (council statement with recommendations), not a research study
• Who was studied: No study population; the report addressed smoking and health policy in the United States and was written for the AMA House of Delegates
• Exposure: Tobacco smoking (mainly cigarettes); asbestos is not discussed
• Main results:
  • The report relayed the 1979 Surgeon General's Report finding that illness and death were higher in cigarette smokers than in nonsmokers
  • Among the Surgeon General's Report conclusions listed: blue collar workers are especially susceptible to the combined additive effects of cigarette smoking and exposure to toxic industrial agents (the agents are not named)
  • Also listed: a 30- to 35-year-old American man who smokes two packs a day has a life expectancy eight to nine years shorter than a nonsmoker
  • From January 1964 the AMA Educational Research Foundation had an agreement with six tobacco companies for a research program on tobacco and health; ten million dollars was awarded to research grantees over a ten-year period
  • The Council recommended that physicians become exemplars by stopping smoking themselves and routinely assess patients' smoking habits
  • The Council recommended that the AMA encourage Congress to adjust the cigarette tax and make package health warnings more explicit, and ask the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit promotion aimed at people younger than 19
• The authors' conclusion: The Council stated that, despite the AMA's and others' efforts, smoking continued to be a causal factor in chronic disease in the United States, and it issued recommendations for physicians, medical societies, the AMA and government

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