April 17, 2008
Health Department Unveils Scary New Anti-Smoking Ad
The Health Department launched its annual effort to get New Yorkers to stop smoking by rolling out another provocative ad. This one shows a woman whose smoking habit led to 20 amputations:
Like most smokers, Marie started smoking as a teenager. She developed Buerger’s disease, a condition that narrows arteries, reducing blood flow to the arms and legs. She has lost portions of most fingers, as well as a leg and a part of one foot. In the ads, Marie describes the pain she has endured and explains how her disability keeps her from doing even simple tasks. She also recounts how it affected her relationships with loved ones. “The light burned out in my kitchen and I can’t even change it,” she says. “My daughters might even have been embarrassed [by] what I was starting to look like. At one point, I wasn’t even living. I was just alive.”You can see the TV spots here. Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said, "Not only do cigarettes kill 8,000 New Yorkers a year, they disable and disfigure many times that number. Thousands of New Yorkers suffer strokes, heart attacks, and amputations that cause irreversible damage every year."
The Health Department is giving away free nicotine patches and gum through May 1--just call 311. Apparently Marie was able to quit after calling 311 for patches in 2006; she said, "If telling my story to the public helps one person quit smoking, it’s worth it." And the Health Department's has said its previous anti-smoking ad effort, using a smoker whose larynx was removed, has been successful.
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Thanks for ruining my day jen chung
Good.
Now let's see the Health Department go after obesity. I have a feeling it's a much greater contributor to health problems than smoking.
But obesity is a much touchier subject. It's not about demonizing a single product (like cigarettes), but about addressing lifestyle issues.
Jesus F. Christ, enough already!
I can’t help but wonder if the money that was falsely promised to my daughter’s school (and many others in the city) went from the DOE to the DOH to do these gross-out ads. What they are effective at is getting Mayor Bloomberg and Dr. Frieden in the papers.
Which, lately, given its shameful record of achievement, seems to be the only thing this administration can do right.
My daughter doesn’t smoke because my wife and I taught her not to smoke. Health and habits are learned at home and at school. I’ve developed anti-smoking materials for schools. These ads are exploitive, pornographic, and obscene. And yet our municipal government just keeps churning them out.
Bloomberg's legacy: hack and slash shock ads and getting dicked around by Shelly Silver.
These ads are exploitive, pornographic, and obscene.
i don't think anyone can masturbate to these ads.
With the Helvetica on a black background, it look like a subway sign at first. I thought that it might be an MTA ad, like, "The fare increase will be this many."
I bet she looked real cool when she was a teen though.
Okay, not that kind of porn (there's another?), like slasher porn.
Now let's see the Health Department go after obesity.
Never happen... politicians don't have the balls to try and hold people accountable for their own actions. To address obesity, you kind of have to.
Westsiiiiiiide.
I call horrible blood circulation by diabetes, sure smoking screws you over, sure I smoke, and sure shock ads never really worked as intended. My point is correlation does not imply causation, she smoked and probably had a metric fuckton of improperly treated or treated in a less than adequate manner.
Speak for yourself, Zodak.
OH Hell NO! You trying to move in on my boy "tracheotomy guy" Ronaldo Martinez? "LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN" is classic. Four Fingered woman ain't got a thing on my boy.
WhereamI: A diagnosis of Buerger's requires ruling out diabetes (among other things). The disease pretty much only occurs in smokers (which was probably one reason why it was picked.. the whole amputation thing is the other).
man, scare tactics don't work on smokers. all it does is freak them out and when you're freaked out, what do you want but a smoke?
Westsiiiiiiide.
haaaaaaaaaa!
ugh, i need a cigarette. brb ^_^
She should have gone to the gym and exercised.
I bet she smoked two packs a day while sitting on her ass.
Rock-a-fella!
Get this gross shit off my TV. Anyone who doesn't yet realize that smoking is unhealthy DESERVES to get fucking lung cancer and die.
That's what you get for adopting a squirrel. Oh wait, wrong post...
"i don't think anyone can masturbate to these ads."
I don't think the woman in the picture can either. She'll need a few more fingers for that.
That ad was worse than the foot amputation one. They really have quite some talent for shock value, these folks.