CDC Combats Smoking With New Graphic Ads

The agency unveiled its national, antismoking campaign yesterday.

March 16, 2012

WASHINGTON - Graphic photos and stories from ex-smokers who experienced strokes, amputations, lung removal and heart attacks are at the center of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention??s (CDC) new antismoking media campaign, CNN reports. The agency revealed the ads and commercials yesterday.

"Tips From Former Smokers" educates about smoking??s dangers. "Hundreds of thousands of lives are lost each year due to smoking, and for every person who dies, 20 more Americans live with an illness caused by smoking," said Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, in a statement.

"We cannot afford to continue watching the human and economic toll from tobacco rob our communities of parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and co-workers. We are committed to doing everything we can to help smokers quit and prevent young people from starting in the first place," she said.

The CDC??s Office on Smoking and Health came up with the campaign, which combines PSAs and paid ads in magazines, newspapers, radio and TV. Billboards, movie theaters, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook will also be saturated with the advertisements.

"Although they may be tough to watch, the ads show real people living with real, painful consequences from smoking," said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden. "There is sound evidence that supports the use of these types of hard-hitting images and messages to encourage smokers to quit, to keep children from ever beginning to smoke, and to drastically reduce the harm caused by tobacco."

The Obama administration has appealed a ruling that said it was unconstitutional to require tobacco firms to plaster cigarette packages with graphic health warnings.

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