CDC ad campaign reveals harsh reality of smoking-related diseases
March 15 2012 - 12:30PM
Business Wire
A hard-hitting national ad campaign that depicts the harsh
reality of illness and damage suffered as a result of smoking and
exposure to secondhand smoke was launched today by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Beginning Monday, March 19, ads
will run for at least 12 weeks on television, radio, and
billboards, online, and in theaters, magazines, and newspapers
nationwide.
The “Tips from Former Smokers” campaign features compelling
stories of former smokers living with smoking-related diseases and
disabilities, and the toll smoking-related illnesses take on
smokers and their loved ones. The ads focus on smoking-related lung
and throat cancer, heart attack, stroke, Buerger’s disease, and
asthma. The campaign features suggestions from former smokers on
how to get dressed when you have a stoma (a surgical opening in the
neck) or artificial limbs, what scars from heart surgery look like
and reasons why people have quit. The ads will be tagged with
1-800-QUIT-NOW, a toll-free number to access quit support across
the country, or the www.smokefree.gov web site, which provides free
quitting information.
“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 Health and Human Services
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “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.”
The “Tips from Former Smokers” campaign is another bold step in
the administration’s commitment to prevent young people from
starting to use tobacco and helping those that smoke quit. Recent
milestones 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.
Additional support to help smokers quit is provided through state
toll-free quit lines and implementation of web and mobile based
interventions.
Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and
disease in the United States, killing more than 443,000 Americans
each year. Cigarette smoking costs the nation $96 billion in direct
medical costs and $97 billion in lost productivity each year. More
than 8 million Americans are living with a smoking-related disease,
and every day over 1,000 youth under 18 become daily smokers.
Still, nearly 70 percent of smokers say they want to quit, and half
make a serious quit attempt each year. The “Tips from Former
Smokers” campaign will provide motivation, information, and
resources to help.
“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, M.D., M.P.H. “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.”
For more information on the “Tips from Former Smokers” campaign,
including profiles of the former smokers, other campaign resources,
and links to the ads, visit www.cdc.gov/Quitting/Tips.