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 Cigarette packs in the U.S. will soon feature new warning labels
with graphic images of the negative health effects of smoking,
including diseased lungs and the sewn-up corpse of a smoker. The
U.S. government hopes the new warnings will discourage smoking, but
smokers and nonsmokers alike question whether the ads are too gory.
"Somebody said when they first saw the warnings, 'These are really
gross.' And they are," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said at a
White House briefing. "We want kids to understand smoking is gross
-- not cool -- and there's really nothing pretty about having mouth
cancer."
The labels, which were released on Tuesday, are a part of a campaign
by the Food and Drug Administration that aims to convey the dangers
of tobacco, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths in the
U.S. a year.
The warnings, which must appear on cigarette packs by the fall of
2012, include several images that could be seen as shocking to some
-- and disturbing to others. Among the images: A man with a
tracheotomy smoking, a mother holding her baby with smoke swirling
around them and a man with an oxygen mask. The labels also feature
phrases like "Smoking can kill you" and "Cigarettes cause cancer."
They will take up the top half -- both front and back -- of a pack of
cigarettes and be featured in advertisements.
Some consumers on Tuesday said that they were concerned that the
images on the new labels were too explicit for children and others
who might come across them in store aisles.
Zenobia Marder, a nonsmoker and high school student from New York
City, was startled when she looked at some of the labels. "Oh my
God!" screamed the 15-year-old.
Ashley Johnson, 21, of Cincinnati, had a similar reaction. "They
look so bad," says Johnson, who has been smoking for about a year.
"I think that when people see these pictures, they might put the
cigarettes back and get something else instead."
Warning labels first appeared on U.S. cigarette packs in 1965, and
current warning labels that feature a small box with text were put
on cigarette packs in the mid-1980s. Changes to more graphic warning
labels that feature color images of the negative effects of tobacco
use were mandated in a law passed in 2009 that, for the first time,
gave the federal government authority to regulate tobacco.
Tobacco companies and others have argued graphic warnings like the
nine new labels may cross the line of social acceptability.
In comments to the FDA, some tobacco companies argued the "shock and
awe" of the labels have been used in numerous ideological debates
like when anti-abortion protesters display photographs of aborted
fetuses or animal-rights activists display photographs of mutilated
animals. "Although such images illustrate actual effects of abortions and
actual animal treatment, no one would contend that they are 'purely
factual and uncontroversial,'" Reynolds American Inc., parent
company of America's second-largest cigarette maker, R.J. Reynolds;
No. 3 cigarette maker Lorillard Inc.; and No. 4 cigarette company
Commonwealth Brands Inc., told the FDA. The companies also are part
of a federal lawsuit that in part deals with the legality of the new
labels.
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Cigarette labels with more graphic images could also concern some
retailers; customers who may be offended or disgusted by the packs
behind the counter may take their business elsewhere.
"You're going to run into people that will not necessarily like
this," said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of
Convenience Stores, a group representing an industry that gets about
160 million transactions each day. "When somebody's hungry, they get
something to eat. When somebody's thirsty, they get something to
drink, and we just want to make sure that when they go in, they
still want to get that."
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged
that the labels are "frank, honest and powerful depictions" aimed at
making tobacco-related death and disease part of the nation's past.
Marketing and tobacco control experts say that's what's needed.
"It's clear to us that the stronger, the more graphic, the better,"
said Jeremy Kees, a marketing professor at the Villanova School of
Business who has done studies on graphic cigarette warning labels.
"Fear really drives the effectiveness of these warning labels ...
mild, weak images are, in some cases, no better than a plain text
warning."
Marketing experts also say the new labels aren't unique to the U.S.
In fact, the new U.S. labels are typical of what's being used in the
more than 40 other countries, said Stanton Glantz, a tobacco
researcher at the University of California at San Francisco. Canada,
for instance, in 2000 rolled out warning labels to include a
pregnant woman smoking. Uruguay also shows rotting teeth and gums on
its labels, similar to the images on the new warning labels in the
U.S.
"These are the images that work," Glantz said. "What the research
shows is that images that evoke a strong emotional response are the
best ones."
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Online:
New Cigarette Warning Labels:
http://1.usa.gov/j2DI5f
[Associated
Press; By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM]
Michael Felberbaum can be reached at
http://twitter.com/MLFelberbaum.
Associated Press Writers Joseph Pisani in New York and Lisa Cornwell
in Cincinnati contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
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