On July 24, 1995, Stephen J. Jay M.D. (Assistant Dean for Continuing Medical Education and Professor of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine) conducted a phone interview with C. Everett Koop M.D. (former U.S. Public Health Service Surgeon General, 1982-1989) for an article to be published in Indiana Medicine: The Journal of the Indiana State Medical Association. Having been involved for years with tobacco control efforts in Indiana, Jay had asked the Indiana State Medical Association (ISMA) if they would support a special theme issue of the journal on the tobacco epidemic. Theme issues of state medical journals had been previously published regarding tobacco, and it was a review of a conversation between Alan Blum, M.D. and Dr. Koop in a 1983 issue of the New York State Journal of Medicine that prompted Jay's proposal to ISMA.

With the support of ISMA and several national leaders in tobacco control at the American Medical Association, Jay invited Koop to participate in a structured phone interview. Prior to the interview, Jay provided Koop with draft questions along with an explanation that for the special issue of the journal he was also preparing historical vignettes of several Indiana natives whom Koop had known and who had played important roles in tobacco control in Indiana and the United States. Among those individuals that Jay had contacted for the project was former Indiana Governor and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Otis R. Bowen, M.D., with whom Koop had worked together to issue some of his most important public health reports on tobacco usage as U.S. Surgeon General. Bowen wrote Jay in support of his initiative to produce a special theme issue of Indiana Medicine and expressed his admiration for Dr. Koop.

After conducting the interview, Jay provided Koop with a transcript of the interview for review. In his correspondence with Jay, Koop explained that he had decided to remove some sections of the interview in view of "the recent [$10 billion] libel suit that Philip Morris brought against ABC." For this reason, the version of the interview that was ultimately published in the journal differs somewhat from the original recording and unedited transcript included in this collection.

The theme issue of Indiana Medicine entitled Indiana Physicians Confront the Tobacco Epidemic, was published in March/April 1996. Craig Gosling, Director of Medical Illustrations at the Indiana University School of Medicine, with the support of staff from the Medical Educational Resources Program, designed the cover for the special issue. That same year, in an effort to cut costs, the ISMA Board voted to discontinue Indiana Medicine, which had been in continuous publication since the early 1900s. The special theme issue on the tobacco epidemic was the penultimate issue of the journal.