The release of the1964 Report on Smoking and Health was a true watershed event in public health. The New York Public Library has called the report one of the most important scientific publications of the twentieth century, as important as Albert Einstein's The Meaning of Relativity and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Clearing the Air: The Untold Story of the 1964 Report on Smoking and Health provides the only behind-the-scenes account of how that seminal document was produced. This insider view, written from the perspective of five individuals who worked on the report, exposes the pressures and politics involved with preparing that landmark document and discloses many previously unknown facts about people and events that contributed to the report's success.