The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is turning up the heat to try to stop Americans from smoking. This week, the agency release nine new graphic warnings that will be required on at least 50 percent of the cigarette packages sold in America within the next two years.
The FDA hasn’t added any new labels in more than 20 years and it decided to make these good ones – well, depending on your point of view. One label lists a smoker with smoke coming out of his tracheotomy hole in his throat. The caption reads, “WARNING: Cigarettes are addictive.” Another label shows smoke around a baby with the caption “WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children.” A third, and this is my personal favorite, is photos of two lungs – one of a nonsmoker and the darker, ickier one of a smoker. The only caption on this one gives the quit helpline of 1-800-QUIT-NOW.
What I find to be the most graphic label is the next one – of a mouth with yellow, rotting teeth and a sore on the lips. The caption for this one reads, “WARNING: Cigarettes cause cancer.” Yet another label shows a person with an oxygen mask and the caption reads, “WARNING: Cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease.” There is another baby related label with a newborn in an incubator with tubes hooked up to it. No caption, but then, do you really need one?
The next label is also pretty graphic. It shows a man lying on a table with stitches all up and down his chest. I guess he is supposed to be dead because the caption reads, “WARNING: Smoking can kill you.” Another label shows a woman looking distraught, crying and the caption reads, “WARNING: Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers. The final new label shows a burly guy with a shirt that reads “I QUIT” and the caption “WARNING: Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health.”
If you haven’t seen the new labels, they can be viewed at the Huffington Post.
I think smoking is like eating. Many of us overeat and don’t think about the effect it has on our bodies. So maybe these labels will remind smokers just how bad it is for their health, and that there is help out there. Now if food labels could just be so graphic!