F.D.A. Unveils Graphic Warning Labels for Cigarettes

[SecularMotion]

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — Federal drug regulators unveiled 36 proposed warning labels for cigarette packages on Wednesday, including some that are striking pictures of smoking’s effects.

Designed to cover half of a pack’s surface area, the new labels are intended to spur smokers to quit by providing graphic reminders of tobacco’s dangers. The labels are required under a law passed last year that gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products for the first time.

The proposed labels include pictures of a man smoking from a tracheostomy tube inserted into his throat; a diseased lung; and a woman holding a baby in a smoke-filled room. The proposals stayed away from some of the more gruesome labels used in other countries, where pictures of blackened teeth and diseased mouths are common.

“Today marks an important milestone in protecting our children and the health of the American public,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Wednesday.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/health/policy/11tobacco.html?_r=1

[ixion]

1. So when are they going to start posting crap like that on everything else that is deterimental

I mean, we may just as well have anti-abortion style pics on everything from Fast Food to Gasoline, because it's all toxic and deadly.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

2. +1

[snooper2]

7. I've got an idea..

We could put this---



On this---

[Atman]

3. I have a package of Thai Marlboro's...YIKES!

At least half the lable is a big color photo of a cancerous trachea...truly disgusting. I don't smoke, btw, I just bought the pack to bring back to the states and freak out my smoking friends.

[Catherina]

4. Oh goody. Can we get a warning label for toxic frankenfoods now. n/t

[markbark]

5. Won't matter

You could put "THESE THINGS WILL F*CKING KILL YOU!!" on the pack and folks would still light up.
Nicotine is more addictive than heroin, but it's legal and very VERY profitable.

[bigworld]

6. You're right.

Has anyone actually done a study on if such labels result in any less incidence of smoking?

[elocs]

14. "Scare tactics don't work":

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/opinion/12iht-edlinstrom.1.18632161.html?_r=1

A brain-imaging experiment I conducted in 2006 explains why antismoking scare tactics have been so futile. I examined people's brain activity as they reacted to cigarette warning labels by using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a scanning technique that can show how much oxygen and glucose a particular area of the brain uses while it works, allowing us to observe which specific regions are active at any given time.

We tested 32 people (from Britain, China, Germany, Japan and the United States), some of whom were social smokers and some of whom were two-pack-a-day addicts. Most of these subjects reported that cigarette warning labels reduced their craving for a cigarette, but their brains told us a different story.

Each subject lay in the scanner for about an hour while we projected on a small screen a series of cigarette package labels from various countries - including statements like "smoking kills" and "smoking causes fatal lung cancers." We found that the warnings prompted no blood flow to the amygdala, the part of the brain that registers alarm, or to the part of the cortex that would be involved in any effort to register disapproval.

To the contrary, the warning labels backfired: They stimulated the nucleus accumbens, sometimes called the "craving spot," which lights up on f.M.R.I. whenever a person craves something, whether it's alcohol, drugs, tobacco or gambling.

Most smokers know that it is bad for them and that it kills people, but there is this amazing ability to believe and rationalize that it will happen to someone else, not them. For many smokers all they need is to hear about smoking or see a cigarette and it makes them crave one and makes no difference if the context in which they see or hear is a negative one.

[unblock]

23. at best this study suggests that labelling isn't *directly and immediately* effective on the smoker.

but it doesn't say anything about whether or not the message help foster a long-term bias toward quiting. smokers who do quit go through a long, sometimes VERY long process of thinking about quiting, and very gradually getting more and more motivated to actually try it, then they try it and revert, and repeats several times (i think 11 times is the average) before they quit for good.

it is entirely possible that labeling helps shorten the timeframe it takes to get to the point of actually quitting, and this is not something easily tested through an mri.

in fact, given the rather limited knowledge we have about the complex functioning of the brain, i there very little we can conclude about something as complex as public policy based on any mri study.


a further point is that labeling and ad campaigns help create anti-smoking societal attitudes (or, more accurately, allow the anti-smoking attitudes that are already there to feel more comfortable being expressed) and THAT is probably what drives many smokers to quit. i know plenty of people who smoked back when society didn't seem to care, and stopped after people felt more comfortable giving them dirty looks when they smoked in public. once upon a time, no one dared do that.

[unblock]

21. riiight, no one has ever quit smoking. ever. can't be done.

and if they did quit, it certainly wouldn't be for their health.

:sarcasm:

yes, it is legal, addictive, and profitable. but that doesn't mean that aggressive anti-smoking campaigns and labeling don't help reduce smoking. my contacts in the tobacco industry tell me the u.s. is in a big long-term decline due to anti-smoking attitudes, largely a result of government labelling and ad campaigns that then permeate societal attitudes. so the industry is focusing on foreign countries such as china, where smoking is increasing rather than decreasing.

[bigworld]

25. This is what I want to know

.. what DOES work? Higher taxes? Making smokers feel ostracized? Graphic labelling? A combination? Unfortunately, I'm just thinking that the more graphic the picture, the more kicks the kids will get out of it. Witness the success of the the "Saw" movies.

[unblock]

26. the reality is that nothing works quickly, but it does add up.

ultimately the real driver is societal attitudes, which lead to anti-smoking laws and labeling which in turn lead to more anti-smoking societal attitudes.

the reverse was also true, of course. cigarettes as elegant and stylish accessories in hollywood movies did wonders for cigarette sales. you don't see as much smoking in screen these days, one of the many things that helps make "mad men" a great period piece. all the smoking in that show really sticks out nowadays.

[jmowreader]

36. Get the government to mandate the "blend" in the tobacco rod

Just add two or three percent manure to the mixture of tobaccos and other products.

If sucking on burning shit won't stop 'em from smoking, nothing else will.

[Lance_Boyle]

8. This doesn't bother me so much - smokers will eat the cost of the required packaging.

I do wonder, though, when FDA will mandate that all Whoppers and Big Macs must come wrapped in printouts from the "peopleofwalmart" website, and the Christmas ham will be packaged in a box covered with abattoir images.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

9. LOL, this is silly.

You want smokers to quit? Just raise thier health insurance rates to levels that reflect the cost of treating various smoking related cancers.

It's no surprise that people make poor personal choices when the negative externalities are paid for collectively.

[otohara]

11. What Health Insurance?

Smokers by socio-economic status

Smoking prevalence was higher among adults living below the poverty level (32.3 percent) than those living at or above the poverty level (23.5 percent).

http://www.oralcancerfoundation.org/tobacco/demographics_tobacco.htm

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

12. You know, the one we have to maybe someday are mandated to buy...

Health Care Reform for the win!!!

:sarcasm:

[Sal Minella]

17. I understand this.

When you ain't got much, it's a comfort to have a cigarette. When I was terribly broke, I always managed to scrounge the money to buy cigarettes, sometimes going without food. (I probably would have stolen cigarettes if that had been last resort.)

I got a decent job, got into better shape financially, borrowed the money to buy the nicotine patch, paid back the loan from what I was no longer spending on cigarettes, and have been a non-smoker since.

Asking people who are suffering to give up their last small comfort -- don't think it's ever going to work.

I couldn't quit until I was in better shape emotionally and financially.

[pipoman]

39. I think fatties should have to pay more for health insurance

it is only fair, they are way more likely to use their health insurance.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

40. Agreed.

[otohara]

10. Bravo

my son and many of his friends smoke ciggies - maybe this will make them think about quitting this nasty habit.

[ThingsGottaChange]

13. And who's going to pay for all this?

The taxpayer, of course. How about some pictures of horrific car crashes, mangled bodies and brain damaged kids on all the alcohol packages??? Guess getting wasted and killing other people is ok. Must not be any costs to the healthcare system from alcohol. This is all kinds of fucked up. Does anyone really think smokers don't know this already?!?!?

[Lance_Boyle]

15. only taxpayers who buy cigarettes

The FDA is mandating that tobacco companies use this packaging, not providing the packaging for them.

[kestrel91316]

19. RW talking point FAIL, lol. The tobacco companies will pay to put the

pics on their packaging, and then pass the cost on to smokers.

Taxpayers who are smart enough not to smoke won't have to pay a dime. We will even save money if the societal costs of smoking go down (you know, cancer, heart disease, and stroke treatment for people on Medicare and those without any insurance at all).

[grahamhgreen]

16. This is great! Check out these warnings on the packs in Thailand (WARNING GRAPHIC!):

[pansypoo53219]

18. in forth grade. somebody brought a smoking contraption

and a white handkerchief and 'smoked' thru the hanky. that was enough for me.

[TrogL]

30. I trapped a fly in a bottle and had my brother-in-law breathe smoke into it

The fly died in seconds.

Hmmmm.

[Mosby]

20. If the feds want to help people stop smoking

they should subsidize smoking cessation programs, especially nicotine replacement therapies.

[SOS]

22. A suggestion for more warning labels

Current:

GOVERNMENT WARNING:
(1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects.
(2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.

Suggested addition to "may cause health problems":


Suggested addition to "impairs your ability to drive a car":



Suggested addition to "risk of birth defects":

[unblock]

24. surely you could have found some appropriate pics of shrub

:evilgrin:

[SOS]

27. Surgeon General warns:

Excessive alcohol consumption may lead to being worst President in history. :)

[unblock]

33. YES! thank you!

:rofl:

[Warpy]

28. Kids will think that stuff is cool and probably collect them

because no kid ever thinks he's going to live to 30, let alone 60, and no kid thinks he's ever going to get that kind of nasty disease.

Too bad there's no way to put end stage COPD on a pack of smokes.

However, putting wrinkled up people on them might have an effect. Nicotine really screws up the skin, and the young are nothing if not vain.

[TrogL]

29. Those are mild (pun intended)

You should see the ones up in Canada. My favourite is a photograph of a mouth full of rotting teeth.

[Psephos]

31. What's next, graphic posters at abortion clinics?

And I say that as a supporter of legal abortion.

The government has no business generating propaganda, regardless of moral purposes cited in its support. The act of government propagandizing is itself a moral disaster.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- Juvenal

[beevul]

35. Well said.

Those that support such things, appear to be short sighted when it comes to applying the same 'methodology' to thier own personal ox.

What an ugly and ignorant social precedent this will set.

[canetoad]

32. Had them here for years

Makes it easy when I buy cigarettes; 'The ones next to the gangrenous leg, no not the rotting lung.....'

[booksenkatz]

34. We should glue graphic war photos on the side of the Pentagon, which kills far more. NT

[jmowreader]

37. Funny you should mention this

During the Iran-Iraq War, some famous photojournalist (I read this in a magazine many, many years ago) went to the battlefield in Iran and took a lot of photos. Many of them were of young men who'd died in combat. You had these guys lying face-up on the desert floor with big puddles of blood coming out. Extremely gruesome work, and he figured the Iranian Government censors would never, ever let him keep doing this kind of work. (IIRC he was required to have his film processed in Iran--he was shooting Ektachrome, and that was a fairly common process in Iran at the time; the government also had controls on some of the most critical raw materials in the chemistry so the only way to get the film developed was to go to a government-sanctioned processor who had these guys in the back room censoring all the pictures that came through.) He'd pick up his film and the mullahs were always "great work, fantastic, you're doing a fine service." Then he found out, just before he left the country, that the mullahs were duplicating all the slides with the best casualties on them--and making Iranian Army recruiting posters out of them.

[booksenkatz]

41. Oh wow, that's a very interesting story... thanks!NT

[iris27]

38. That is just fucked up.

I'm incredibly anti-smoking - haven't met a public-place smoking ban I didn't like - but this is over the top and gross.