to issues related to services delivery, under the rubric of "community health," and the other devoted to environmental health. Environmental programs were consolidated and upgraded, with new Division-level units created for radiological health (1957) and air pollution (1960) and a new National Advisory Committee on Radiation. With the exception of the multidisciplinary National Institute of Mental Health, institutional boundaries were redrawn to distinguish services-oriented programs at the Bureau of Medical Services from research at the National Institutes of Health and from information gathering units such as the National Library of Medicine groundbreaking for Bethesda, Maryland facility in June, 1959 and the National Center for Health Statistics established in August 1960, comprising Public Health Method's surveys group and PHS's National Vital Statistics Division. Surgeon General Burney also refashioned his position to emphasize his role as a spokesperson on behalf of public health. In 1957 and again in 1959, he was the first Federal official to publicly identify cigarette smoke as a cause of lung cancer, issuing statements that paved the way for his successor, Surgeon General Luther L. Terry. Traditional public health functions remained no less important. During his tenure Burney played a leadership role in public health affairs both internationally chairing the U.S. delegation to the 1959 World Health Assembly and domestically serving as President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers. In addition, he supported an effective response by the Communicable Disease Center to the 1957 Asian influenza pandemic and gave ongoing, measured support to the development of the oral polio vaccine developed by Albert Sabin. Later years On January 29, 1961, shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, Surgeon General Burney stepped down from his post to give the new Democratic administration the opportunity to nominate its own choice for Surgeon General. Reforms and ideas raised during Burney's administration would become the foundations of health policy under Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. After retiring from PHS, Burney served as Vice President for Health Sciences at Temple University and on the Board of the Milbank Memorial Fund until his retirement in 1990. He died on July 31, 1998, in Park Ridge, Illinois. References External Links Surgeons General of the United States Butler University alumni Indiana University alumni Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health alumni 1906 births 1998 deaths Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health