Smoking & Health Issues
Philip Morris USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop such serious diseases than non-smokers.
These have been, and continue to be, the messages of the U.S. Surgeon General and public health authorities worldwide. Smokers and potential smokers should be guided by these messages when deciding whether or not to smoke.
You can obtain more information directly from these public health organizations about cigarette smoking and disease in smokers: International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society, and the U.S. Surgeon General.
Our Support of a Consistent Public Health Message
We support a single, consistent public health message on the role of cigarette smoking in the development of disease in smokers, and on smoking and addiction.
Surgeon General Reports on Smoking & Health
The Surgeon General of the United States has been the nation's leading spokesperson on matters of public health since 1871.
Beginning in 1962, at the request of President John F. Kennedy, the Surgeon General's office took on the task of reviewing literature on smoking and health and began issuing periodic reports. The first report was published in 1964.
For more information on the Surgeon General Reports related to tobacco use, please visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To access all Surgeon General Reports, please visit the National Library of Medicine website and click on the full list of reports link.
Quitting Smoking
Public health authorities have not determined that any cigarette is less risky than any other cigarette. To reduce the health effects of cigarette smoking, the best thing to do is to quit. Learn More