The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently celebrated the 50-year anniversary of the landmark 1964 Surgeon General’s report on smoking, considered one of the great public health achievements of our time and the first of 30 other such reports from the Surgeon General on smoking. Major criticisms of the report include a “[c]avalier treatment of costs of smoking”: The Surgeon General argued that smoking costs the United States billions, but the tobacco industry noted that “smoking saves the country money by increasing the number of people dying soon after retirement,” so we don’t have to pay for Social Security, Medicare, and the like. In fact, the industry argued, if we were truly... [Read more]