73 Gallup SG Poll for MO
Author: Anne LandmanDate: 2003-02-11
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Summary:
This four-page document, "A Review of Awareness of the Surgeon General's Warning by Brand", is a survey done for Philip Morris, Inc. by the polling firm of Gallup & Robinson in 1973 to gauge public awareness of the U.S. Surgeon General's warning about the health hazards of smoking. The document was one of over 250,000 that Philip Morris was allowed to keep confidential following the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, which required the industry to release approximately 40 million of its internal documents to the public. An article in an AP Wire Service/New York article of February 6, 2003 (Judge Allows Survey in Smoker Trial) about the Sylvia Allen case currently ongoing in Miami, Florida, reported that this document had been admitted to evidence in that case.
The survey shows that only 3.1% of smokers were aware of the Surgeon General's health warning about the dangers of smoking at that time. An average of only 5.7% of the total sampled population were aware of the warnings.
The survey is significant because of the frequent tobacco industry claim that knowledge of government warnings about the dangers of of smoking was widespread at that time. This survey shows that awareness of government health warnings in reality was actually very low, and even lower among smokers than in the overall population.
Anne Landman
American Lung Association of Colorado
Tobacco Document Research Annex
P.O. Box 23105
Glade Park, CO 81523
(970) 263-9199
Fax (970) 263-9799