THE US government has unveiled a series of Australian-style graphic picture warnings to be considered for cigarette packets, including a dead man in a coffin.
A crying baby, a bald cancer patient and a close-up of a mouth with dirty teeth and a malignant lip lesion are also among the images the Food and Drug Administration is proposing for cigarette packs.
The changes are part of a 2009 law that requires new and larger labels on cigarettes to depict the negative health consequences of smoking.
The warnings will take up about half the space on the front of each cigarette pack, located on the upper portion so they are visible in most store displays.
A series of 36 graphics are available on the FDA’s website and the government agency will accept comments from the public until January 9 before deciding on nine of them, it said.
“Today, FDA takes a crucial step toward reducing the tremendous toll of illness and death caused by tobacco use by proposing to dramatically change how cigarette packages and advertising look in this country,” said FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.
“When the rule takes effect, the health consequences of smoking will be obvious every time someone picks up a pack of cigarettes.” By October 2012 the new warnings will be mandatory on all cigarette packs distributed in the US and in all cigarette advertisements.
Currently, the standard warning on cigarette packs in the US is found in small print along the side of the box: “Surgeon General’s warning: cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide.” Canada was the first country in the world to adopt mandatory warning images in cigarette packages.
Australia has had prominent graphic images as warnings since 2006. Warnings must cover 30 per cent of the front and 90 per cent of the back of the box. About 20 per cent of the American population smokes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The FDA says 443,000 people die in the US each year due to tobacco use, making it the leading cause of premature and preventable death. “Smoking can kill you,” “Smoking during pregnancy can harm your baby,” and “Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers” are among the suggested text warnings.
Others include “Cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease,” and “Cigarettes cause cancer.” But it is the colour images accompanying the the text that aim to jar consumers out of the habit.
“Warning! Cigarettes are addictive,” reads one graphic, accompanied by a cartoon drawing of a man injecting a cigarette into his arm like a needle. Another uses the same words but shows a photo of a man with a tracheotomy, cigarette in hand, smoke emerging from the hole in his neck.
One uses childlike handwriting on a lined background like school paper to say: “Tobacco smoke can harm your children.” Others show a man clutching his chest in pain, a morgue tag on a corpse’s toe, lungs riddled with cancer and a man blowing cigarette smoke in a woman’s face.
An FDA spokesman told AFP that the full-color graphics, which would be costly, will be paid for by tobacco companies, not US taxpayer funds.
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