ABSTRACT
David Player retired as Chair of the Public Health Alliance and is Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and General Practice at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine. He remains, as participants in the National Health Service 50 Conference will testify, a combative and engaging campaigner for the cause. Smoking was killing more people than any other preventable disease and Sir John was determined to do something about it. Smoking rates certainly did begin to come down but it’s difficult to deal in terms of cause and effect because of the many associated factors. The tobacco industry alone had about forty MPs who would get up and rubbish any report that came out on the dangers of smoking. The research funded had a condition that it must not look at the effects of tobacco. Very distinguished professors and departments of public health applied.
