CDC to start hard hitting anti smoking ads

From Monday 19th March, a national advertising campaign against tobacco smoke is set to launch. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will run the adds for some 12 weeks or more, covering radio, TV, billboards, theaters and online venues. In what they have dubbed "Tips from Former Smokers", the campaign will feature dramatic real life stories of smokers and the diseases and disabilities they suffered. It also documents the effects it has had on their families and loved ones. The adverts obviously feature the major health problems associated with smoking, including lung and throat cancer, heart attack, stroke, Buerger's disease, and asthma and will also educate the public to the horror of surgery scars, artificial limbs that maybe required as circulation is lost, as well as how to get dressed when you have a stoma (a surgical opening in the neck).The ads will be branded with the 1-800-QUIT-NOW, a toll-free number to access quit support across the US, and the http://www.smokefree.gov web site, which provides free quitting advice. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said: "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 ... 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." Smoking is still the number one cause of preventable death and disease in the US, killing nearly 500,000 people a year. Direct health costs of tobacco illness are estimated at close to $100 Billion dollars per year, with another $100 Billion for losses to productivity. Even more alarming is the fact that 8 million Americans live with smoking related health problems and around 1000 under 18s per day are becoming daily smokers. The "Tips from Former Smokers" campaign aims to target the 70 percent of smokers that say they want to quit, half of whom make serious efforts each year. The current administration with Obama, a former smoker, has made a commitment to stamp on tobacco. Recent achievements include the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gives the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products to prevent use by minors. A variety of government funded quitting smoking advice groups are also available online and by phone. CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H clarified his thoughts and the agencies standpoint : "Although they may be tough to watch, the ads show real people living with real, painful consequences from smoking ... 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."