Newest CDC Anti-Smoking Campaign Once Again Features Graphic Ads

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week unveiled its latest anti-smoking campaign, which features real people talking about smoking in tough and often frightening terms.

A previous anti-tobacco ad campaign featuring graphic images helped 100,000 people quit smoking, the CDC said in September.

The latest “Tips From Former Smokers” campaign includes ads for TV, radio and print, HealthDay reports. The campaign will last nine weeks. The ads show the suffering caused by cigarettes from asthma, cancer, heart attack, and amputations. Some of the new ads will focus on smoking-related cancers, the impact of cigarettes on the health of pregnant women, and the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Two new ads feature Terrie Hall, a cancer survivor who appeared in previous CDC ads. She started smoking in high school. She was diagnosed with cancer at age 40, and her voice box was removed. The earlier ads showed Terrie with false teeth, a wig and a scarf that covered the hole in her neck. Her new ads were filmed shortly before she died at age 53 in September. In the ads, she urges smokers to quit.

“When I was a teenager there was no tobacco education,” Terrie said soon after the first CDC campaign ended. “I wish I had had someone like me come visit my school and show me how tobacco would affect my body. Maybe I would have made a more educated decision about what I would do with cigarettes.”