And even if they did figure out that it was unhealthy, the only for-profit arms of society that would care are insurance companies*. But so long as people would purchase profitable plans, they don't care how healthy they're being, only how profitable. So even the sober-eyed insurance companies wouldn't try to mount a robust campaign for public health. And the for-profit Tobacco companies would continue to invent greater ways to dig into the same old gold mine and fight to remove this hard-won knowledge of the health-consequences of cigarettes from the public domain and instead put forward something like, "Oh no, that's just how people get old and die. Don't worry about it! Let one of our smooth, rich cigarettes carry those cares away..."

*Maybe also whatever companies run hospitals, but once again, so long as those patients are profitable, who cares what keeps them coming in? Hell, maybe we can make a fine buck by breaking more people with this super profitable lung cancer...