On December 8, 1971, the Walgreens pharmacy chain received a letter from a registered nurse in the Chicago area. Her brother-in-law, a smoker, was about to have his cancerous larynx removed, and she admonished the company for selling tobacco and not warning customers of its effects. “By the time you receive this my brother-in-law will have lost his ability to ever speak again,” she wrote. “Ghastly, isn't it?”1