Robert Evans

The 1930s are where we're going to see the first attempts on a large scale to document the relationship between cigarettes and cancer.

The impetus for this research actually comes from one of the few industries that can rival big tobacco for sheer evil, the insurance industry.

Right.

They are the people who are going to, because they see this early research and they're like, wait a second, we're paying a shitload of money out on all these fuckers dying of lung cancer.

If cigarettes cause it, we need to be charging people more if they smoke, right?

Like they're doing it for evil reasons, but it is important.

research.

King Kong versus Godzilla.

Exactly.

So one of the chief drivers of this is a guy named Frederick Hoffman, who is a statistician at Prudential.

And Hoffman notices in 1931 that a lot of fucking life insurance policies are being filled for dead lung cancer patients.

If smoking was the cause, then again, you're going to need to restructure the way premiums work.

A lot of money is at stake, which is obviously what interests Prudential.

They

So the thing that Hoffman notices is that in 1915, the lung cancer rate stands at about 0.7 people per thousand people, right?

About 0.7 people per every thousand in the population are likely to get lung cancer.

By 1920, it's risen to 1.1 per thousand.

It's 1.6 per thousand by 1924 and 1.9 per thousand by 1928.

That means in 13 years, the rate of lung cancer has nearly tripled.

Now, Hoffman is not bound by the ethical constraints of a doctor, right?