The Food and Drug Administration unveiled on June 21 the final nine warning images that will appear on every package of cigarettes by 2012 – graphic photos and drawings intended to educate and even deter consumers from buying cigarettes.
The images, set to debut in stores this September, are required by the 2009 Tobacco Control Act, according to FDA spokesman Jeffrey Ventura, who added that these are the first changes to cigarette pack warnings in 25 years. By Oct. 22, 2012, cigarette manufacturers will no longer be able to distribute cigarettes for sale in the United States unless they display these warnings.
Courtesy of Food and Drug Administration
The law required the warnings to cover the top half of the front and back of cigarette packs and 20% of cigarette advertisements, and they must contain color graphics depicting the negative health consequences of smoking.
"This is something Congress wanted to happen and mandated that the FDA carry out," Mr. Ventura said in an interview. Based on a study of 18,000 smokers conducted for the FDA by RTI International, federal officials said they firmly believe that visually communicating smoking’s harm will deter cigarette consumption over the long run.
The images include photos of tobacco-diseased lungs beside healthy lungs, a corpse in casket, a man exhaling smoke though a tracheostomy, and lip cancer. There are also several cartoons and photos of mothers blowing smoke into infants’ faces. One positive image shows a burly man exposing a T-shirt saying, "I Quit."
Blunt statements accompany each image, intended to drive home the messages that cigarette smoke not only directly harms the smoker, but the smokers’ children and people in close proximity.
"The introduction of these warnings is expected to have a significant public health impact by decreasing the number of smokers, resulting in lives saved, increased life expectancy, and improved health status," FDA officials said in a press statement.
Mr. Ventura said the images were selected after the consumer study involving smokers aged 15-50 years. After viewing each of the images, subjects rated their emotional and cognitive responses, their ability to recall the images, and their opinions on whether the pictures could alter their beliefs about the danger of smoking and the desire to buy tobacco products and quitting tobacco.
Young people responded most strongly to a cartoon image depicting tobacco addiction – a cigarette being injected into an arm vein as well as a puppet controlled by strings.
Adults, on the other hand, responded most strongly to photos showing the direct effects of cancer on their bodies – the man with the tracheostomy and a woman smoking in the pouring rain, trying to shield her cigarette with a folded newspaper. Adults also reacted more strongly than did young people to images depicting harm to young children.
The study did conclude, however, that none of the images were significantly related to an increased likelihood of quitting smoking within the next 30 days, or the likelihood of smoking a year after viewing the images. Thus, the report noted, the campaign is more likely to exert a long-term behavioral impact than any immediate effects.
Courtesy of Food and Drug Administration
"Eliciting strong emotional and cognitive reactions to the graphic cigarette warning label enhances recall and processing of the health warning, which helps ensure that the warning is better processed, understood, and remembered," the study said. "As attitudes and beliefs change, they eventually lead to changes in intentions to quit or start smoking and then later to lower smoking initiation and successful cessation. The time scale on which this behavior change process occurs is largely unknown in the context of the impact of exposure to graphic warning labels on smoking behaviors, but the effects on behavior change are unlikely to be immediate or short-term.
Nevertheless, groups promoting antitobacco messages – including the American Heart Association – strongly believe that the warnings will enhance consumer education and change behavior.
"Undoubtedly, the new graphic health warnings will heighten awareness about the dangers of smoking and, more importantly, encourage smokers to quit and discourage smoking initiation," an AHA press statement read. "We’re confident that the new labels will move us closer to our goal of making the nation 100% smoke free."
Tobacco-Free Kids, a group dedicated to educating children and teens about the dangers of smoking, also issued a statement of support, but with a moderated view on the campaign’s possible impact. The group also called on political leaders to financially commit to "waging war" against tobacco.
"The warnings and other FDA regulations are powerful tools, but they are a complement – not a replacement – to other federal and state strategies to reduce tobacco use," Matthew L. Meyers, the group’s president, said in the statement. "To win the fight against tobacco, elected leaders must also fund and implement public education campaigns, expand health care coverage for therapies to help smokers quit, increase tobacco taxes, and enact strong smoke-free laws in every state."