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Lecture coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General's Report on smoking, health in 1964
April 16, 2014
Dr. Michael Cummings will be the featured speaker for the 2014 Vernberg Lecture.
Dr. Michael Cummings of the Medical University of South Carolina will be the featured speaker for the Winona B. Vernberg Distinguished Lecture Series at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 24, at the Russell House Theater.
The program coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General's Report on smoking and health in 1964.
Considered one of the world’s leading authorities on tobacco policy, Cummings is co-leader of the Hollings Cancer Center Tobacco Research Program. His talk, "Tobacco Control: A Glass Half Full or Half Empty?," is free and open to the University community and the public. The Russell House Theater is located on Greene Street. Parking is available in the Bull Street garage, which can be entered from Blossom Street.
Cummings is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at MUSC's College of Medicine and a leading public health scholar in the field of tobacco control. His research focuses on investigating the influence of tobacco product marketing and counter-marketing campaigns, product design, consumer risk perceptions, treatments for smoking cessation and the influence of public policy on tobacco use behaviors.
During his career of more than 33 years, Cummings has authored over 360 peer-reviewed scientific papers, including landmark reports for the Office of the Surgeon General, the National Cancer Institute, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the Institute of Medicine. In the late 1990s, he contributed to digitizing and publishing online previously secret internal tobacco industry documents which described how manufacturers directed their marketing to attract youthful replacement smokers and designed cigarettes in ways that make it hard for smokers to quit once they are to nicotine.
Cummings earned his bachelor's degree in health education at Miami University (Ohio) in 1971 and his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan. He is co-leader of the Hollings Cancer Center Tobacco Research Program.
The lecture is named for Dr. Winona Vernberg, the first dean of USC's Arnold School, which was established in 1975. Vernberg was interim dean for two years before being named the permanent dean, a post that she held for 17 years.
Visit http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/50-years-of-progress/index.html for "The Health Consequences of Smoking -- 50 Years of Progress," recently released by the U.S. Surgeon General.
For more information, call 803-777-5037, or email kpetit@mailbox.sc.edu.
