Tobacco industry's strategic use of personal responsibility rhetoric from Cancer by the Carton to the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act

This study consists of a content analysis of tobacco industry documents; legislative, litigation, regulatory materials; and news coverage spanning the publication of Cancer by the Carton by Reader's Digest in 1953 to the passage of the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act in 1965. Personal responsibility is a deeply held American value which the tobacco industry successfully exploited to make its case that smoking was a personal choice. Whether a public health issue is understood as a personal, or social, responsibility can determine which policy interventions are deemed appropriate. While scholars have identified personal responsibility as a key tobacco industry strategy, no studies have systematically evaluated industry and public health advocates' arguments around personal responsibility on tobacco issues. This study documents how responding to the public outcry over scientific research linking smoking to lung cancer, the tobacco industry energetically presented itself as a socially-responsible actor while claiming it bore no responsibility for the health harms suffered by smokers. The 1964 Surgeon General's report confirming the cancer link was crucial to establishing a new, if contentious, responsibility for the federal government to intervene on behalf of the public's health against the dangers from cigarettes. During this period, public health advocates did not articulate a unified position to counter the industry's individualistic portrayal. The strategy helped the industry weather the mid-1950's public outcry over smoking's health harms, and established a discourse, which excluded actions that would have effectively responded to the 1964 Surgeon General's report.