Jump to full article: The Washington Post, 2008-04-27
Author: Matt Schudel Washington Post Staff Writer
Intro: William H. Stewart, 86, who as U.S. surgeon general from 1965 to 1969 led the federal anti-smoking crusade and called for warning labels on cigarette advertising and who used the introduction of Medicare to desegregate hospitals throughout the country, died April 23 of kidney failure at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans.
Dr. Stewart was a career Public Health Service officer who became surgeon general one year after his predecessor, Luther L. Terry, released a landmark report that drew an explicit link between smoking and lung cancer and other diseases.
Expanding on the 1964 report, Dr. Stewart commissioned studies that hammered the tobacco industry by spelling out the toll that cigarettes exacted in lost productivity, disease and early death. Many of his recommendations, including stricter warning labels on cigarette packages and advertising, were adopted despite fierce opposition. . . .
He fought to toughen the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965, which affixed a warning on cigarette packages saying that smoking could be "hazardous to your health."
He maintained that it was "indefensible" for the tobacco industry to advertise cigarettes "in a context of happiness, vigor, success and well-being without even a hint appearing anywhere that the product may also lead to disease and death."
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