The following is from an editorial in The New York Times:
A new study has suggested the Food and Drug Administration greatly underestimated how much graphic warning labels on cigarette packs reduced the rate of smoking among Canadians. As a result, it says, the FDA vastly underestimated the impact such warnings would have in the United States.
The interpretation is crucial because a federal appeals court blocked the FDA's first attempt to require graphic warning labels on the grounds that the agency had shown no persuasive evidence the warnings were likely to reduce smoking rates.
Most experts agree the biggest deterrent to smoking is raising the cost of cigarettes. As a result, whatever impact graphic warnings had after they were introduced in Canada in 2000 depends heavily on the cost of cigarettes in that period.
The new study, carried out by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Waterloo in Canada, argues the FDA erred in calculating cigarette costs in Canada. The study says the FDA used cigarette excise tax rates, which rose during the decade, instead of the prices actually paid by consumers, which fell. That caused the FDA to overestimate the effect of prices and underestimate the effect of graphic warnings, it said.
Citing several alleged flaws in the FDA's analysis, the study concluded the reduction attributable to Canada's warning labels was 33 times to 53 times larger than the FDA's estimate. Had the U.S. adopted labels in 2012, it said, the number of adult smokers would have fallen by 5.3 million to 8.6 million.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a group that favors graphic warning labels, urged the FDA to use the study to come back with a label that would satisfy the courts. Stronger, graphic warnings could save lives.