News

Surgeon General Report Focuses on Tobacco Litigation (#SGR50); Massachusetts Seen as New Frontier

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Mark Gottlieb (617-373-2026) or Edward L. Sweda, Jr. (617-373-8462) Boston – The U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health, which was released today at the White House, highlighted the importance of litigation against tobacco companies over the past 50 years in the United States.  Thanks to a landmark 2013 ruling by […]

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PHAI’s Gottlieb Calls for No Tobacco Sales to Anyone Under Age 21 in New England Journal of Medicine

-Boston In a “Perspective” article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Executive Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law, Mark Gottlieb, urges adoption of the Tobacco 21 policy as a means to reduce smoking rates by getting tobacco out of high schools. The piece, entitled,

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Historic $79 Million Cigarette Settlement Signifies Beginning of Wave of Tobacco Cases in Massachusetts

If you someone in your family was recently harmed by smoking, please see our cigarette lawsuit information page. Boston FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Mark Gottlieb – 617-373-2026 Massachusetts is now the most favorable state in the country to bring a cigarette smoking personal injury case.  A Massachusetts Tobacco Case Information Hotline has been established for victims of

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PHAI’s Wilking interviewed in Huff Post for Michele Simon’s “Ask a Food Lawyer” feature

Michele Simon is a public health lawyer specializing in industry marketing and lobbying tactics. She is the author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, and president of Eat Drink Politics, an industry watchdog consulting business. Ms. Simon asks PHAI’s senior staff attorney, Cara Wilking, about

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New study finds McDonald’s and Burger King responsible for 99% of fast-food television ads for kids, suggests industry’s efforts to self-regulate its marketing practices are ineffective

Fast-food companies emphasize toy giveaways and movie tie-ins rather than food products when marketing to kids on television, which suggests that industry is not abiding by its self-regulatory pledges for child-directed marketing, according to a study co-authored by the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of

New study finds McDonald’s and Burger King responsible for 99% of fast-food television ads for kids, suggests industry’s efforts to self-regulate its marketing practices are ineffective Read More »

NYC’s new soda size restriction should survive any legal challenge (but, so far, hasn’t): An Update

Updated:  July 30, 2013 At this point, the Supreme Court of NY County (March 11, 2013) and the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Dept. (today) have ruled that the sugary beverage serving size cap in New York is invalid. The case name is: In re New York Statewide Coalition of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, et al.

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Major Energy Drink Makers Don’t Play By Their Own Rules

Cara Wilking, J.D Today, the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, released a report entitled Energy Drink Self-Regulation chronicling the ways in which major energy drink makers openly violate the self-regulatory guidelines issued by their own trade association, the American Beverage Association (ABA).  A review of energy drink

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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules that all cigarettes sold in Massachusetts are defective

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Edward L. Sweda, Jr. or  Mark Gottlieb 617-373-8462 or 617-373-2026  2010 Verdict Reflected Juror Outrage at Handouts of Free Cigarettes to Children. The SJC today unanimously rejected Lorillard Tobacco Co.’s attempt to evade liability in a case brought by Willie Evans, whose mother Marie died in 2002 at the age of 54. 

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2013 Altria Group, Inc. Annual Shareholders Meeting: Politely conducting business as usual

By Edward L. Sweda, J.D. In sharp contrast to the manner in which management at Reynolds American, Inc. conducted its annual meeting of shareholders a week earlier,  Altria Group, Inc.’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Martin J. Barrington treated everyone at the May 16th meeting in Richmond, Virginia with courtesy and politeness. Barrington began his presentation

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The 2013 Reynolds American, Inc. Annual Shareholders Meeting: orders, points of order, “out of order” and ordered out!

By Edward L. Sweda, J.D.                 As the hour of 9:00 A.M. approached on May 9, 2013, the date of Reynolds American, Inc.’s (RAI) Annual Shareholders Meeting in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the atmosphere seemed more contentious than in previous years.  In addition to the tight security that included

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