HHS Secretary Counters Big Tobacco Lawsuit Challenging Cigarette Warning Labels
September 02, 2011
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius takes on the tobacco companies that filed suit to block new graphic warning labels from appearing on cigarette packs, saying this would be 'a huge setback for our children’s health.'
Writing in The Washington Post, the HHS secretary notes that the labels are part of a broad array of measures required by the bipartisan 2009 law that gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate the tobacco industry. A key goal of that law is preventing kids from starting to smoke.
'Overall, these rules will make it much harder for the tobacco industry to use its nearly $10 billion marketing budget to reach and recruit child smokers,” Sebelius wrote.