New FDA-mandated cigarette pack photos unsettling

Today's warnings on cigarette packs are one element that has driven down the percentage of Americans that smoke. Still, 23.5% of American men are puffing away, as well as 17.9% of women. The new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 takes the warning requirement much further, requiring that by the summer, 50% of the upper portion of the front and rear panels of each cigarette pack carry a prominent text warning and a color picture illustrating the damage wrought by cancer sticks.

The FDA is circulating a bevy of proposed artwork for this change; some cartoon illustrations, some photographs of people smoking through the stoma on their neck, cadavers lying on the autopsy slab or a closeup of mouth cancer. Some are thought provoking, some lackluster.