Surgeon General Vivek Murthy Releases Report on Addiction Epidemic

In 1964 the Surgeon General issued a report on smoking, summarizing the scientific evidence demonstrating the health risks of tobacco use. Scientifically, nothing in that report was new. It was a review of what was already known. But it had a profound societal effect by publicizing a health risk that had been until then largely ignored. Education, health policy, and the advice of many individual doctors were transformed.

This week the Surgeon General released “>Surgeon General Murthy Wants America To Face Up To Addiction (Shots, NPR’s health blog)
“>Surgeon General Says Addiction Crisis a ‘Moral Test for America’ (Time)
“>Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health (US Dept. of Health and Human Services)