In 1957, U.S. Surgeon General Leroy Burney, who served in the post from 1956 to 1961, issued a report on a connection smoking and lung cancer. Dr. Leroy Burney, US Surgeon General during the Eisenhower Administration was the first government official to publicly acknowledge the connection between smoking and lung cancer. Dr. Burney, himself a smoker, issued the report in 1957, saying, "It is clear that there is an increasing and consistent body of evidence that excessive cigarette smoking is one of the causative factors in lung cancer." This statement and a stronger one two years later in 1959 set the stage for the 1964 Surgeon General Report on smoking and health. Burney died 31 July 1998, at the age of 91.[Image: Top - Smoker's lung, dead at 50. Bottom - Non-smoker's lung alive until 70.]