Public Health Advocacy Institute

Top Boston Firms Join Forces with Public Health Advocacy Institute

Center For Public Health Litigation, Legal Filings, Press Release, Tobacco /

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:  Mark Gottlieb or Andrew Rainer  617-373-2026 “We are so pleased to be working with this outstanding group of lawyers to help some of tobacco’s victims in Massachusetts,” said Andrew Rainer, PHAI’s Litigation Director and Director of the Center for Public Health Litigation.  Working together with PHAI will be: PHAI’s latest suit, […]

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Coke’s Balancing Act

Feet To The Fire, Food Beverage Marketing, Obesity, Publications /

By Cara Wilking, JD, Consulting Attorney The Coca-Cola Company’s pouring of millions of dollars into the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), a front group focused on exercise as opposed to diet to combat obesity, has crystallized an issue that the public health community has long been concerned about: the role of industry funding to research and develop

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Stop & Shop Responds to PHAI’s Demands to Prevent Sales of Scratch Tickets to Kids

Legal Filings, News, Predatory Gambling​, Press Release /

n 2014 and 2015, the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) conducted testing to determine whether kids could purchase lottery tickets from the vending machines located in a number of area supermarkets.  At markets in Cambridge, Somerville, and Arlington, Massachusetts, a teenage tester was easily able to purchase lottery tickets in every attempt. Massachusetts law expressly

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Re-Tooling Bottled Water Bans and Healthy Beverage Requirements to Serve Sustainability and Public Health Goals: A Constructive Path Forward

Feet To The Fire, Food Beverage Marketing, Obesity /

By Cara Wilking, JD, PHAI Consulting Attorney Researchers at the University of Vermont in Burlington (UVM) published a paper describing the impact of a campus bottled water ban that was paired with a healthy beverage requirement. The study found that removing bottled water from campus had no impact on the number of plastic bottles shipped

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Under An Hour: My Time at the 2015 Altria Group, Inc. Annual Shareholders Meeting

News /

By Edward L. Sweda, Jr. There are 8,760 hours in any given year (excluding leap years). The management of Altria Group, Inc. used just under one of those 8,760 hours to conduct its 2015 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting at the Greater Richmond Convention Center in Richmond, Virginia on the morning of May 20th. The meeting began precisely

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PHAI Mentioned in Boston Globe Article About Efforts to Prevent Underage Lottery Vending

Center For Public Health Litigation, News, Predatory Gambling​ /

In recent months, PHAI has worked with concerned parents and a national anti-predatory gambling group to address youth access to instant lottery tickets through unattended vending machines. Fears around easy access to scratch tickets by kids grew when we found that a 14-year-old was able to easily purchase tickets from lottery vending machines in supermarkets

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R.J. Reynolds’ Shareholder’s Report from Winston-Salem: A “Good Year,” a Proposal to Merge and a Death Toll that Must Not Be Acknowledged

News, Tobacco /

By Edward L. Sweda, Jr. Like clockwork, the 2015 Reynolds American (RAI) Annual Shareholders Meeting started precisely at 9:00 A.M. on Thursday May 7, 2015 at the company’s headquarters in Winston-Salem, North Ed Sweda Carolina.  Seventy-five minutes later, the meeting was adjourned. Before I could attend the meeting, I had to proceed through intense security,

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PHAI’s Chris Banthin Quoted in Boston Globe Article on Smoke-free Homes

Ets, News /

The April 30th edition of the Boston Globe featured an article authored by correspondent Peter Keogh entitled: \”The Plight of the Smoking Man.\” The piece explained the difficulties that some smokers have faced in the wake of increasing restrictions on smoking, including in many multiunit residential buildings.  While the article spends some time exploring the

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