[ RadSafe ] Interesting Proposed Cigarette ProductWarningLabels

[franz.schoenhofer at chello.at]

Corinne and RADSAFErs,

I can confirm that in all member states of the European Union it is compulsory to put warnings in bold letters at about half of the available area on the cigarette package. There are no pictures, but a black frame as is customary at death announcements. The text is much more strictly forward than the ones proposed in the USA - "Smoking kills" and not "Smoking might kill", "Smoking causes coronary infarction and stroke" - not "maybe". In Brazil I remember about ten years ago huge advertising along the main roads like "Smoking makes you impxteyt", garnished by a very pretty girl....

I always joke with smoking collegues, whether they have already reached their daily intake of Po-210. So I was also thinking of a possible warning about the deadly radioactive substance Po-210, additional with a remark that the former KGB spy Litvinenko had been deadly poisoned with exactly this radionuclide. I do not seriously expect that this would help to reduce smoking.

Best regards,

Franz 

Franz Schoenhofer, PhD, MinRat
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
mobile: ++43 699 1706 1227



---- "Mancevice schrieb:
> This is already done in many other countries. http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/10/u-s-cigarette-warning-labels-are-about-to-get-graphic/ The examples from Brazil are quite disturbing.
> 
> If you want to make it on topic consider the trace amounts of radioactive material in cigarettes (Po-210, Pb-210). That could make for an interesting warning label, "Contains trace amounts of radioactive Polonium 210", although people would probably misconstrue that to mean that by being near a box of cigarettes you'd receive some amount of dose.
> 
> 
> Corinne
> (Personal Opinion Only)
> 
> -----
> Corinne Mancevice
> Sr. Health Physicist
>  
> Yale University Environmental Health & Safety
> 135 College Street, Suite 100
> New Haven, CT 06510
> (203) 737-4754
> www.yale.edu/ehs
>