Fake News: Disinformation, Deception, and Magical Thinking Over Time

1930-1950 Evidence Mounts Linking Cigarettes and Cancer

Before the 1950's, cigarette advertisers tried to differentiate their brand through health claims in advertising. Camels claimed that "more doctors smoke Camels." Lucky Strikes emphasized that toasting made their cigarettes healthier and prevented coughing,. in one of the most successful campaigns, Lucky Strikes became the top selling brand on the strength of the motto "Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet" playing on the belief that smoking helped in weight loss.



While the industry touted health claims, early on physicians and researchers were alarmed by the increasing incidence of cancer in the U.S. population. Doctors and statisticians noticed similarly dramatic increases in lung cancer deaths among United States adult men. in "The Increased Mortality Rate of Cancer" Eggers reported a 45% increase mortality rate from cancer per 100,000 people from 1900  to 1924 (1928) and found:

 

The increase in the reported mortality rate of malignant disease has been so obvious in late years as to attract considerable popular attention, and to cause much alarm especially to the lay public. That this increase is a very real one is shown by the comparison of the crude figures for 1900, 63.0 per 100,000 population, with those of 1924, 91.9 per 100,000. Eggers, H. E. (1928). The increased mortality rate of cancer. The Journal of Cancer Research, 12(1), 9-17.


In these early days scientists looked at many possible causes of the increase of cancer: better diagnosis and reporting, chemical exposure related to service in World War One, and road paving. Over decades of more research scientists began to discard other causes as smoking more and more was linked to cancer. In 1952, two researchers, E. Cuyler Hammond and Daniel Horn, working for the American Cancer Association, started the first major prospective study of 188,000 smokers, providing the strongest evidence to date. Participants were interviewed and followed up on through 1955. When individuals died the cause of death was noted. Their first findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and found that

men with a history of regular cigarette smoking have a considerably higher death rate than men who have never smoked or men who have smoked only cigars or pipes.


While not many would read the Journal of the American Medical Association, scientific reports finding ever stronger evidence of the link between smoking and cancer began to be reported in the popular press. In the early 1950's both Life Magazine and Reader's Digest published articles citing this research, bringing news of the link between cancer and smoking to a much wider audience than the medical literature had.






In December 1952 Readers' Digest ran "Cancer by the Carton."
 

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