illustrating the harms of smoking, but this could be subjected to legal challenge.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The proposed warnings would cover half the pack.
Several years ago, tobacco companies filed a lawsuit, which ultimately shut down a similar proposal.
The warnings focus on lesser-known complications – including diabetes, cataracts, gangrene, stroke, bladder cancer, erectile dysfunction, and obstructive pulmonary disease – and would take up the top half of the front and back of cigarette packs, and at least the top 20% of print advertisements. Each pack and ad would be required to carry 1 of the 13 proposed warnings, according to the announcement.
The approach would be similar to, but not as aggressive as Canada’s. For years, cigarettes packs sold in Canada have included disturbing photographs of diseased lungs, rotted teeth, and dying patients. The lasting impact of such imagery has been demonstrated in the literature (for example, Am J Prev Med. 2007 Mar;32[3]:202-9).
The new proposal is the FDA’s second attempt to enact something comparable in the United States, after being directed to do so by the Tobacco Control Act of 2009.
The first effort to add strong, illustrated warnings to cigarette packs was widely backed by medical groups, but challenged in the courts by R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies, and blocked on appeal in 2012 as an abridgment of commercial free speech. The federal government dropped the case in 2013.
The American Lung Association and other public health groups subsequently sued the FDA in 2016 to enact the Tobacco Act mandate. Subsequently, a federal judge ordered the agency to publish a new rule by August 2019, and issue a final rule in March 2020.
This time around, the FDA “took the necessary time to get these new proposed warnings right ... based on – and within the limits of – both science and the law,” the agency said. The new images, though graphic, are less disturbing than those used in Canada and the agency’s previous proposals, which included an apparent corpse with a sternotomy. The 1-800-Quit-Now cessation hotline number, which was a sticking point in the 2012 ruling, has also been dropped.
When asked about the new efforts, R.J. Reynolds spokesperson Kaelan Hollon said, “We are carefully reviewing FDA’s latest proposal for graphic warnings on cigarettes. We firmly support public awareness of the harms of smoking cigarettes, but the manner in which those messages are delivered to the public cannot run afoul of the First Amendment protections that apply to all speakers, including cigarette manufacturers.”
Warnings on U.S. cigarettes haven’t changed since 1984, when the risks of lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and pregnancy complications were added to the side of cigarette packs. With time, the FDA said the surgeon general’s warnings have become “virtually invisible” to consumers.
The American Lung Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and other plaintiffs in the 2016 suit called the new proposal a “dramatic improvement” over the current situation and “long overdue” in a joint statement on Aug. 15.
Although rates have declined substantially in recent decades, about 34.3 million U.S. adults and almost 1.4 million teenagers still smoke. The habit kills about a half million Americans every year, at a health cost of more than $300 billion, the FDA said.
Comments on the proposed rule are being accepted through Oct. 15. The agency is open to suggestions for alternative text and images.