Last Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed that Medicare beneficiaries under the age of 74 who, for at least 30 years of their lives smoked one pack of cigarettes a day, would be covered for annual screenings for lung cancer, according to the New York Times. This is extremely important for many reasons. First, 90 percent of lung cancer cases can be attributed to cigarette smoking according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is usually diagnosed late in life and is the most deadly type of cancer for both men and women; 27 percent of the total deaths caused by cancer are from lung cancer. 

Although the five-year survival rate is less than 50 percent no matter at which stage it is diagnosed, early diagnosis does make a difference: according to the American Cancer Society, when the cancer is caught in stage I, the five-year survival rate is 45 to 49 percent, while for stage III it drops to five to 14 percent, and at stage IV it is only one percent (these ranges depend on the type of lung cancer). While this new proposal is an excellent step forward for diagnosis of lung cancer, it is not a measure that would help the root of the problem itself: smoking.

At around the same time that the government proposed annual screenings for lung cancer in America, statistics on the effectiveness of Australia’s relatively new and mandatory cigarette packaging law started to be collected and analyzed. In 2011, Australia’s parliament approved new standardized packaging for all cigarettes, showing graphic images of the damage they can cause on the outside of each pack. These images include damaged lungs and open mouths exposing cancer, and are clearly displayed so the buyer sees the pictures before buying the cigarettes. While most smokers reported to be against this packaging when the legislation was first passed, it seems to be showing some positive results: calls to a hotline to help people quit increased by almost 80 percent, and the smoking population in Australia has dropped by three percent, according to the Washington Post. The United States should take note of Australia’s example and follow in its footsteps, but, unfortunately, this is unlikely. 

In 2009, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was passed in America, which created new requirements for tobacco companies, including using larger written warning labels on cigarette packs and more transparency of cigarette ingredients. While this is progress, it will hardly make the difference graphic labeling does. A simple black and white label with easily ignored words does not have the same visual impact as a rotting lung. The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates tobacco products in the United States, proposed new packaging, including the image of a man lying in a coffin. But this was ruled unconstitutional under the First Amendment by a federal judge in 2012. It is disappointing that showing the realities of smoking on cigarette packages is illegal in this country. 

America is doing itself a disservice by avoiding stricter regulations and more prevalent warnings for tobacco products. While there are commercial campaigns and other measures, they are often too easily ignored by those who need to see them most. If there is a commercial on, it is easy to switch the channel, and if there’s a billboard one can easily look the other way. 

But when the message that smoking is harmful is prominently displayed on the cigarette pack itself, it becomes impossible to ignore for the people who need to see it. Those graphic labels in Australia may be enough to turn that “just one more cigarette” urge for someone who is trying to quit into a call to a hotline. In Australia, the graphic labels are where they need to be seen when they need to be seen. 

The laws that we have in America are protecting an industry whose sole product kills its patrons. While we are protecting jobs and an industry, we are making it way too easy to put people at risk. And while it’s great to offer the proposed screenings for lung cancer, it doesn’t do anything to actually prevent lung cancer. According to the Center for Disease Control, 68.9 percent of adult smokers wanted to stop smoking. Is protecting the tobacco industry really worth further damaging the health of, according to the CDC, the over 16 million Americans who suffer disease caused by smoking? Although these laws are a great step forward in the early detection of lung cancer, more could be done in the United States to stop people from smoking.