Review

Smoking memos

DENIAL & DELAY: the political history of smoking and health, 1951-1964
David Pollock
Action on Smoking and Health, 1999

Clear evidence of the association between smoking and lung cancer began to appear during 1948, when Hill and Doll carried out the first of their now famous studies. By the end of 1950, one British and one American study had shown a strong link between smoking and lung cancer, and Hill and Doll were ‘satisfied that the case against smoking as such is proven’.

What followed on the part of government, as this remarkable story shows, was not a vigorous programme of public health action but a tale of confusion, complacency, obstruction and inaction which continued for very many years, and some would say continues to this day.

David Pollock’s trawls through the government files and papers of the period have resulted in a highly readable account of this sorry tale, which is surprising hard to put down. If only a similarly well-documented history could now be written from the records of the tobacco companies.