US surgeon gen calls for social media warning labels

The United States Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, announced on Monday that he would push for a warning label on social media platforms advising parents that using the platforms might damage adolescents' mental health.

- ELLEN BARRY

Warning labels - like those that appear on tobacco and alcohol products-are one of the most powerful tools available to the nation's top health official, but Murthy cannot unilaterally require them; The action requires approval by Congress. No such legislation has yet been introduced in either chamber.

A warning label would send a powerful message to parents "that social media has not been proved safe," Murthy wrote in an essay published in The New York Times opinion section on Monday.

In his essay, he cast the effects of social media on children and teenagers as a public health risk on par with road fatalities or contaminated food.