WASHINGTON -- The content of warning labels for cigarettes has resurfaced as an area of renewed study. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is opening a public-comment period with an online survey to consider the effectiveness of the labels, the agency announced.
In a posting dated Sept. 14, the FDA said it would assess the text in warning statements for cigarettes to see if changes would “promote greater public understanding of the negative health consequences of cigarette smoking.”
To do so, it will initiate an online study to involve 1.2 million people who fall into categories that include adolescents who are current cigarette smokers, adolescents who are susceptible to the initiation of cigarette smoking, young adults who are current cigarette smokers and older adults who are current smokers.
Over the years, warning labels—more specifically graphics on labels—have become a topic of public debate.
Here are a few details of the new study …
A control group of study participants will view and comment on the effectiveness of these nine warning statements that the FDA uses:
Here is a list of revised statements the FDA will put before test participants:
In its announcement post, the FDA responded to comments it previously received about adding graphic images to the warning-label test. Three comments suggested that the textual warning statements should be evaluated together with accompanying images because the effects of the final cigarette graphic-warning labels will be a combination of the effects of both the text and images.
The FDA declined the suggestion at this time. "This current phase of the research, which includes the study proposed here, is an effort by FDA to collect data concerning revised, textual-warning statements that may later be used with new images as part of cigarette graphic-health warnings," it said. "In the future, FDA will conduct research pairing warning statements with images."
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