The federal government is planning to put large, graphic warning labels on each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States in order to cut tobacco use, which causes 443,000 deaths every year. The labels, which are part of a new campaign launched by the Food and Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human Services, will feature images of cancer patients, diseased lungs, and dead bodies, and will take up about 50% of the space on a pack of cigarettes.
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said it may be necessary to show explicit or even gruesome pictures for the program to be effective. “This is a very, very serious public health issue with very, very serious medical consequences”, she explained.
Forty percent of Americans smoked cigarettes in 1970, and this ratio dropped dramatically to 20% in 2004, but the rate of decline has since slowed. Currently, about 46 million American adults smoke cigarettes. The price increase of cigarettes has also increased dramatically, from an average of just 38 cents a pack in 1970 to $5.33 today.
Thirty-six graphic warning labels have been proposed by the FDA for public comment. The labels include phrases like “Cigarettes cause cancer”, “Smoking can kill you”, and one picture features a man with a tracheotomy smoking a cigarette.
