Prevention Matters

Partnership for Prevention is pleased to submit these comments to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in regard to required textual warnings and accompanying graphics to be displayed on cigarette packages and in cigarette advertisements.

Partnership commends the FDA on the development of the new graphic health warnings. We urge the FDA to proceed with the implementation of the warnings without delay. The tobacco industry will inevitably work to impede and overturn the plans for the new health warnings on cigarette packages and advertisements, to take effect 15 months after issuance of this final rule. However, it is crucial that the FDA stay the course. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 46 million people (aged 18 years and older) in the United States currently smoke cigarettes. Each day in the U.S., approximately 3,450 young people between 12 and 17 years of age smoke their first cigarette, and an estimated 850 youth become daily cigarette smokers. These statistics make it clear that more needs to be done to reduce the initiation of tobacco use and the prompt enforcement of this Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act requirement will be a step in the right direction. These graphic health warnings will not only help young people to never start smoking, but also be beneficial in helping adults to quit.

Partnership for Prevention also strongly supports that 1-800-QUITNOW be required on all cigarette packages as a way to offer help to smokers who want to quit. A report released by the North American Quitline Consortium in 2010 showed that the total number of tobacco users accessing quitline services in FY 2009 was 515,000 (representing 1.2 percent of smokers), an increase of 129.7% over the FY 2005 level of 224,000. Quitlines are being used now more than ever so including the national access number on cigarette packages would be a simple and practical way to aid smokers who want to quit.

We thank you for the opportunity to comment on the cigarette warning labels and for your consideration of our views. Please contact David Zauche, Managing Senior Fellow & Senior Program Officer, at (202) 375-7807 or dzauche@prevent.org for further information or assistance.

"Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample consisting of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention.

BEST

FDA Proposes Graphic Warnings on Cigarette Packs

A series of gruesome pictures depicting emaciated lung cancer patients, a dead body in a morgue, a baby confined to a respirator (presumably the result of secondhand smoke) and other consequences of smoking that will appear on the outside of cigarette packages will hopefully shock people into quitting the habit or not starting in the first place, U.S. officials announced Wednesday, November 10.


WORST

Florida researcher looks for answers to alarming suicide rate among soldiers


American soldiers are killing themselves at the highest rate since the U.S. Military started keeping records and the trend is getting worse.

Military leaders say they are desperate to take action on the problem so the federal government is awarding a $17 million grant to Florida State and the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center for a suicide prevention program.

FSU's Professor Thomas Joiner is an internationally renowned expert on suicide who will help lead the military's effort to prevent suicides.

Joiner says there's a new trend of suicide in the military. The suicide rate among soldiers used to be lower than the general population. Joiner says now it's higher at an average of 12.5 suicides per 100,000 soldiers.


The “Best and Worst” awards are announced each week in “Prevention Matters,” the blog of Partnership for Prevention. "Best and Worst News for Prevention” is based on a purposive sample of expert staff members who each week choose to share their opinions on the best and worst news for prevention. More information is available at http://www.prevent.org/.

Wow….New graphic cigarette health warnings … FDA wants to know what you think.

At a press conference this morning (November 10, 2010) Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius helped unveil a “comprehensive tobacco control strategy that includes proposed new bolder health warnings on cigarettes and advertisements. In 2009 President Obama signed into law the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” (Public Law 111-31) which required that the Food and Drug Administration add “nine new larger and more noticeable textual warning statements and color graphic images depicting the negative health consequences of smoking.” The Notice of Proposed Rule Making includes 36 proposed images that are a remarkable and long overdue improvements over the warnings Congress required on cigarette packages and advertising ,back in 1984. The FDA is also conducting an extensive 18,000 person consumer test of the proposed graphic images to help identify the nine that will most effectively help current smokers quit and discourage potential new smokers from starting. The results of the FDA’s consumer research will also be released shortly and public comment will be solicited.

The current deadline for public comment on the proposed 36 images is January 9, 2011. The wording of the nine warnings was specified by the Congress when it enacted Public Law 111-31. These warnings include:

‘‘WARNING: Cigarettes are addictive."
‘‘WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children."
‘‘WARNING: Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease."
‘‘WARNING: Cigarettes cause cancer."
‘‘WARNING: Cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease."
‘‘WARNING: Smoking during pregnancy can harm your baby."
‘‘WARNING: Smoking can kill you."
‘‘WARNING: Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers."
‘‘WARNING: Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health."

The challenge for the FDA is to identify graphic images that best amplify the statutorily mandated wording of the cigarette warnings. Federal law also requires that the warnings and graphic images make up the top 50 percent of the front and back of cigarette packages.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said it best: “When the rule takes effect, the health consequences of smoking will be obvious every time someone picks up a pack of cigarettes. This is a concrete example of how FDA’s new responsibilities for tobacco product regulation can benefit the public’s health.

So….take a few minutes to check out the FDA’s proposed new labels.

If you have family and friends who smoke…show them the new labels… get their advice and then tell the FDA.

The FDA has given us all an opportunity to play an important role, individually and collectively, in fighting the nation’s leading cause of premature death and preventable illness. Stronger health warnings, especially if they are accompanied by the 1 800 QUIT NOW cessation number, can help more smokers get access to effective cessation medications and discourage thousands of young people from striking the first match of what can become a lifelong, life threatening addiction.

Lets get to work. Tell the FDA what you think.


E Ripley Forbes
Director, Government Affairs