By LARA SALAHI, ABC News Medical Unit
Nov. 10, 2010
Modest one-liners of smoking dangers featured on cigarette packs may soon turn into gory images and messages that will cover nearly half the pack.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration unveiled 36 jarring labels Wednesday aimed to ramp up efforts to warn smokers of cigarettes' fatal consequences. These labels exercise the agency's new authority over tobacco products and the most significant change in cigarette warnings since companies were forced to add the mandatory Surgeon General's warning in 1965.
Some of the proposed images include a man smoking from a tracheotomy hole, a cadaver labeled to have died from lung disease, and a pained infant exposed to smoke.
For decades federal regulators and health experts have warned that cigarettes are deadly. But Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, called the amped measure, "a timely and much-needed shot in the arm."
"The current warnings are more than 25 years old, go unnoticed on the side of cigarette packs and fail to effectively communicate the serious health risks of smoking," said Myers.
Previous studies also suggest that graphic health warnings displayed in other countries worked better than text warnings to motivate smokers to quit and nonsmokers not to start.
Although overall smoking rates have declined since the 1960s, health officials noted that rates have leveled off in the last decade. About 21 percent of U.S. adults and nearly 20 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Today marks an important milestone in protecting our children and the health of the American public," Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday.
The FDA will accept public comment on the proposed labels through January 2011, and will select nine to use by June 2011. The agency will then require all manufacturers to use the labels on all U.S. sold cigarettes by October 22, 2012.
"When the rule takes effect, the health consequences of smoking will be obvious every time someone picks up a pack of cigarettes," said FDA commissioner, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg.
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