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Alarming images
Starting Sept. 21, 2012, health officials are hoping it will take a good deal more resolve to smoke cigarettes.
That's when new U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations will require cigarette manufacturers to put graphic -- some say gruesome -- warning labels on the top half of the front and back of every pack.
Authorized by the U.S. Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco Control Act of 2009, the rules mandate photos and drawings of a man on a ventillator, a body with stitches in the chest, a baby breathing a parent's smoke, lip and gum cancer, a woman crying because she has been fatally afflicted by second-hand smoke, diseased lungs beside healthy ones and a man puffing smoke through a hole in his throat.
Reynolds America Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C., and other tobacco corporations have filed a federal lawsuit protesting that the images, combined with larger printed warnings, will make their logos hard to see.
Smokeless tobacco packages began saying last year, in bigger type, that that product can cause mouth cancer, gum disease and tooth loss, is not a safe alternative to cigarettes and is addictive; however, packages of smokeless tobacco don't carry graphics.
Dr. Warren Lovinger of Nevada said last Friday that he does not object to the images because they confront a serious issue. "There is an unquestionable connection between cigarette smoking and other tobacco products and a variety of health problems," Lovinger said.
"I've seen a lot of cases and it is so sad, all the way from people who have premature heart attacks and strokes to those with constant impairment of their breathing and cancers that are not treatable."
The internist said lung ailments are especially lamentable because unlike some other organs, the lungs can't heal themselves after a person stops smoking. "There is a stage where it is not retrievable," Lovinger said.
"If you smoke for 30 years, you have that degree of damage forever. But it's never too late to quit and I encourage people to do that. There are some good products, from nicotine patches to a pill called Chantix and others."
Asked why some heavy smokers never show the effects, Lovinger said there are exceptions who appear genetically impervious, but they represent no more than one percent of smokers.
A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention in Atlanta told the Daily Mail last Thursday that the regulations "are the first big change in warning labels in 26 years.
"It's a big step," the spokesman said. "Since 1985, the FDA has only required a small text warning on one side of the cigarette package saying things like the Surgeon General warns that quitting smoking greatly reduces serious risks to your health.
"The new rotating warnings and graphic images will take up almost half the pack. The CDCP didn't work on this. The FDA was given the authority to do it by Congress. Products will also be labeled and advertised with terms like 'light,' 'low' and 'mild.'"
Other American warnings currently in use say smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema and may complicate pregnancy; smoking by pregnant women may cause fetal injury, premature birth and low birth weight; and cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide.
But those are in colors and fonts closely resembling the rest of the pack and don't stand out.
The CDCP representative said his group's Office on Smoking and Health is elated with the changes because they "will have a significant impact by decreasing the number of people using tobacco, saving lives, increasing life expectancy and lowering medical costs.
"The tobacco industry spends $34 million a day on advertising and promotion in the U.S, but a 14-nation study shows warnings on cigarette packs do prompt smokers to think about quitting," he said.
"Over 90 percent of men and women in 12 countries reported noticing a warning in the last 30 days. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death.
"This year, five million people worldwide will die from tobacco-related heart attacks, strokes, cancers and other diseases. In the U.S., that number is 443,000."