John Downey Slade

John Downey Slade, M.D. was an epidemiologist and addictions specialist at Saint Peter's Medical Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and an Anti-Tobacco Expert. Dr. Slade studied tobacco products and their effects on health and demonstrated that smoking was not a habit, but a powerful addiction.



= Biography =

John Slade M.D. was born in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) in 1949 and graduated from Oberlin College in 1969. He completed medical School at Emory University in 1974. He worked for St. Peters Medical Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He was an Associate Professor of Medicine for the Department of Medicine at St. Peter's Medical Center, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, NJ (Orleans & Slade). He was the chair of the Addiction Medicine Committee for the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Has appeared on "Nightline" and knows about the industry's knowledge regarding nicotine as an addiction. He testified on ABC's "Day One" program about nicotine spiking and is the co-author of a book on nicotine addiction: John Slade and Tracy Orleans, eds., "Nicotine Addiction:  Principles and Management" (Oxford Press 1993).

Dr. Slade founded the traveling exhibitTrinkets & Trash: Artifacts of the Tobacco Epidemic (now turned into a web site), a collection of samples and representations of tobacco-industry promotional materials. Slade's goals was to furnish them to public health services, attorneys, press, tobacco-control advocates, and others for educational purposes. From these samples and photographs taken of billboards and other advertisements, Slade produced a circulating slide collection for use in presentations.

Dr. Slade died in February, 2002 at the age of 52 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, which law enforcement officials ruled a suicide. He had suffered a stroke the previous July.