Warning labels on cigarette packages

Abstract

Welcome to Public Health Moment, from the University of Minnesota. President Obama last week scolded tobacco companies for their opposition to the new graphical cigarette package warning labels. He said that the industry does not want to be honest about the consequences of smoking. The warning labels were due to be implemented in September 2012. But recently, a federal judge granted a request by tobacco companies to postpone the deadline. Graphic labels are already used effectively in other countries, said Harry Lando, a University of Minnesota public health professor. <Lando: “There have been studies that have been done that have compared U.S. warnings with the rotating warnings that are still print versus the much bigger and graphic warnings in Canada, the U.K. and Australia – and the warnings in the other countries just had much more impact.”>The risks of smoking are clear: About 90 percent of lung cancer deaths in men and almost 80 percent in women are due to smoking. But Lando said that there are other health risks associated with smoking. <Lando: “The problem is that there are more than 60 known carcinogens in the burning cigarette. Not only is it lung cancer and other kinds of cancer, but the risk of heart disease goes up substantially. We keep learning new things like macular degeneration. I had not heard that that was related to smoking, but it is and [macular degeneration] is a cause of blindness. There’s evidence that impotence in men is even more likely in smokers than in non-smokers.”>