Graphic New Warning Labels for Cigarettes Sought by FDA
The Food and Drug Administration has unveiled a series of new warnings that it wants to plaster over half the surface of cigarette packs, including graphic images of the harms of smoking.
The labels, similar to those already in use in some countries, include images of dead bodies, women holding babies in clouds of smoke, and a man smoking from a tracheotomy tube inserted in his throat. The images can be viewed on the FDA’s website.
Stronger warnings were mandated by the tobacco control act signed by President Obama in June 2009, which authorized the FDA to regulate tobacco products. The law requires the agency to issue final regulations by June, 2011, with the tougher warnings to appear 15 months later.
The FDA proposal includes 36 candidate labels, from which it plans to select nine that will cover the upper half of both front and rear panels of all cigarette packs. The law also requires that the warnings occupy at least 20 percent of the space of cigarette ads.
The FDA is seeking public comment through January 9, 2011, and will then choose the nine new labels.
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