Pure Pedantry

This weeks Ask a Scienceblogger is:

What are some unsung successes that have occurred as a result of using science to guide policy?

I don't know if this is unsung but it bears repeating because it is truly a triumph of science over those who would prefer the research had not been done.

In 1964, the Surgeon General released the Surgeon General Report: Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking representing one of the first of the US governments comprehensive strategies to reduce smoking. The report occured in the teeth of public opinion and industry lobbying.

Periodic updates have been released since then, but I think that this policy, that smoking causes lung cancer and numerous other diseases and that governmental steps should be taken to stop it, has probably been one of the single greatest public health campaigns in history.

Just think of the number of lives that have been saved by prevention of lung cancer and other lung diseases, by fight asthma from second hand smoke, by the reduction in premature births to smoking mothers.

This is particularly relevant because the fight is hardly won. Last week the current Surgeon General issued a report showing that second hand smoke is dangerous to health at any dosage. The WHO estimates that smoking with causes 10 million deaths a year by 2020, every last one of them preventable.

The revelation that smoking causes lung cancer and numerous other diseases is one of science policies most important achievements because it highlighted the single easiest way that we could improve health and cut healthcare costs. It almost seems so last week as to be trite, but considering how tooth and nail the industry fougjht this research, I think it was one of science's greatest successes.