Obama signed a bill that gives the FDA broad authority to regulate the tobacco industry
Jump to full article: U.S. News & World Report, 2009-06-22
Author: Kent Garber
Intro: Pick up a pack of cigarettes in Brazil, and you'll see a photograph of a tiny fetus, a gangrene-infected foot, a cadaver with a hole in the throat, or one of several other images warning of smoking-related risks.
Only a handful of countries require such stark photographic warnings. But thanks to sweeping legislation recently passed by Congress and signed by President Obama today, the United States is about to join the club. The Food and Drug Administration will have two years to develop "color graphic labels" for all cigarettes sold in the country. And that's just one of dozens of changes the tobacco industry faces. . . .
The bill reserves some of its most explicit language for labels, which will have to cover 50 percent of the front and back of a pack. The word WARNING will have to be printed in capital letters in 17-point font. And rather than gingerly alerting smokers to potential health consequences, new labels will cut to the point. Among the approved phrases: "cigarettes cause cancer" and "smoking can kill you."
Tobacco companies shouldn't have much trouble meeting that last requirement. They've been making bigger labels in the United States for years and shipping them out of the country to nations that have long done more to inform smokers of their risks.
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