U.S. Releases New Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels

U.S. Releases new graphic cigarette warning labels just this month of June, 2011.

Cigarette makers must add large, graphic warning labels depicting diseased lungs, a man exhaling smoke through a hole in his neck and other images to packaging and advertising in the U.S. by October 2012.

The nine graphic images accompanying warning labels with messages such as "Smoking can kill you" and "Cigarettes cause cancer" are the biggest change to warning labels in more than 25 years. Such warnings were required by a 2009 law that gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products.

Other images stress the dangers of second-hand smoke to children and show tobacco's causal link to lung disease, cancer, strokes, heart disease and death.

Tobacco will kill nearly 6 million people worldwide this year, including 600,000 non-smokers, the WHO said last month, estimating the global annual death toll could reach 8 million by 2030.