New CDC Ads Show Harsh Consequences of Smoking

Article date: March 19, 2012

By Stacy Simon

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today began running a series of ads that tell the stories of former smokers living with smoking-related diseases. The ads will appear nationwide for 3 months on television, radio, billboards, online, and in theaters, magazines and newspapers.

The “Tips from Former Smokers” campaign focuses on smoking-related lung and throat cancer, heart attack, stroke, asthma, and Buerger’s disease, a disorder linked to tobacco use that causes blood vessels in the hands and feet to become blocked and can result in infection or gangrene. The ads depict painful consequences from smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke, including scars from heart and cancer surgeries and missing limbs from Buerger’s disease.

The campaign comes one week after the U.S. Surgeon General released a report that called youth smoking an “epidemic.”

“This campaign will encourage smokers to quit and discourage youth from taking up the deadly habit by illustrating the very real consequences of tobacco use, which causes more than 443,000 deaths in America each year,” said John R. Seffrin, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society and its advocacy affiliate, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). “These graphic ads have the power to serve as a wake-up call for smokers and would-be tobacco users about tobacco’s lethal impact on health, and they will serve as a powerful tool to help combat the nationwide tobacco epidemic.”

“Combating tobacco use requires a multi-pronged approach, including federal regulation of tobacco products, increased tobacco taxes, smoke-free workplaces, and sustained investment in prevention and cessation now and beyond the end of the CDC campaign,” said Christopher W. Hansen, president of ACS CAN. “This historic advertising campaign will help to combat Big Tobacco’s unscrupulous efforts to addict new users and prevent existing users from trying to quit.”

American Cancer Society can help if you’re ready to quit smoking or to help someone else quit. See our Guide to Quitting Smoking or call us at 1-800-227-2345.

Reviewed by: Members of the ACS Medical Content Staff

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