Jesus...

Look, I'll be completely upfront here and say that I've got no love for (or trust of) the Food & Drug Administration (oh, or the USDA...but that's a topic for a different blog post). But the latest initiative to come out of the FDA, as described in this New York Times article, is just a wee bit unbecoming.

Federal drug regulators unveiled 36 proposed warning labels for cigarette packages on Wednesday, including some that are striking pictures of smoking’s effects.

Designed to cover half of a pack’s surface area, the new labels are intended to spur smokers to quit by providing graphic reminders of tobacco’s dangers. The labels are required under a law passed last year that gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products for the first time.

The proposed labels include pictures of a man smoking from a tracheostomy tube inserted into his throat; a diseased lung; and a woman holding a baby in a smoke-filled room. The proposals stayed away from some of the more gruesome labels used in other countries, where pictures of blackened teeth and diseased mouths are common.

Look, I understand the health risks of tobacco, and the public hazard of secondhand smoke. I agree with educating the public about these risks, and I'm a big proponent of smoking bans in restaurants and bars. But this is going a little too far...

At the very least, the graphics proposed by the FDA are distasteful. But worse, I think these warnings speak to a larger contradiction within our federal watchdog agencies.

Remember, this is the same FDA that steadfastly refuses to place any sort of labeling on foods with genetically modified content (or to allow non-GMO foods to advertise themselves as such), despite scientific evidence that shows health risks from GMO foods. This inconsistency is incredibly troubling, and leads to significant questions regarding whose interests the FDA is truly serving.

We should not allow federal agencies to declare outright war on one industry (which is exactly what they are doing by devoting a full HALF of the surface area of cigarette packaging to these graphic warnings), while they simultaneously allow and encourage potentially risky behavior in others (genetically modified salmon being just one example). Too many government agencies are being allowed to pick winners and losers in our economy, and we simply can't allow this type of mission creep.

The USDA contradiction that I linked to in my introductory paragraph above is another massive failure of government, and shows how conflicting interests can pull and tug our watchdog agencies in very strange and inefficient ways.

Personally, I'm not looking forward to seeing these warnings on cigarette packaging any more so than I'd welcome a picture of an obese man undergoing gastric bypass surgery on a bag of Cheetos. Educating the public is one thing; using scare tactics to undermine a specific product is another thing entirely.


[New York Times]