Art Caplan has a new opinion piece out from CNN today commenting on the decision of the Penn Health System to no longer hire smokers, which he finds ethically problematic. Take a look.
Caplan on Barring Smokers from Hospital Jobs
Reply
Category Archives: Tobacco
Tomorrow: Health Law Year in P/Review, 02/01/13
Newly added:
Remarks from Dean Martha Minow at 3:15
Wrap-up commentary from Kristin Madison, Northeastern Law, at 4:45
The future of global tobacco control conference
Friday Jan 25th @ BU Law. Focusing on current constitutional and treaty-based challenges (WTO, First Amendment, BITs, TRIPS). Details here.
Conference Announcement: Governance of Tobacco in the 21st Century
Governance of Tobacco in the 21st Century:
Strengthening National and International Policy for Global Health and Development
February 26-27, 2013
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| Keynote Speakers: | |
| Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Chairperson, African Union Commission |
Dr. Margaret Chan Director-General, World Health Organization |
How do international laws and institutions regarding tobacco, trade, investment, agriculture and economic development intersect? What are the implications for global tobacco control efforts? How should public health concerns be taken into account in international economic policymaking? What is the proper balance between a government’s obligations to protect the health of its citizens and other international agreements to which it has subscribed? What are the broader implications for global governance and for global health?
This conference will bring together representatives from governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, business, and academia to explore these questions with the objective of:
- Enhancing knowledge, information-sharing, network-building and learning across countries, contexts and policymaking arenas
- Identifying strategies to strengthen the governance of tobacco at national and international levels;
- Fostering greater policy coherence among actors working in health, trade and investment to ensure the protection of global health
The conference is being hosted by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Global Tobacco Control and the Harvard Global Health Institute’s Forum on Global Governance for Health, with advice and support from the World Health Organization’s Tobacco-Free Initiative.
Additional support is provided by: American Legacy Foundation; American Cancer Society; the International Development Research Centre Canada; Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids; Harvard Law School; Framework Convention Alliance; O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University; Institute for Global Tobacco Control, Johns Hopkins University; International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, University of Waterloo, Canada; Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA).
Additional information is available here. Registration is required.
Don’t Forget! Health Law Year in P/Review, 02/01/13
Petrie-Flom and The New England Journal Present: Health Law Year in P/Review, 02/01/13
BU Law Conference on New Legal Challenges to Global Tobacco Control, Jan. 25, 2013
Boston is a great city for health policy. On Jan. 25, BU Law hosts a conference on New Legal Challenges to Global Tobacco Control. Just a month later, Harvard hosts its own conference on the Global Governance of Tobacco (details here).
The BU Law conference (announcement here; detailed schedule here) will focus on challenges rooted in constitutional law (First Amendment litigation in the US attacking FDA-required graphic images on tobacco packs); trade mark law (plain packaging in Australia); and global trade and investment treaties such as the Hong Kong-Australia Bilateral Investment Treaty and the WTO Agreements. Speakers include some of the world’s leading public health experts on this topic:
- Matthew Allen, Allen + Clarke Policy and Regulatory Specialists
- Micah Berman, New England School of Law
- Scott Burris, Temple University Beasley School of Law
- Julien Chaisse, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Richard Daynard, Northeastern University School of Law
- Samantha Graff, NPLAN
- Jane Kelsey, University of Auckland Faculty of Law
- Lara Khoury, McGill University Faculty of Law
- Mark Levin, University of Hawai’i at Manoa William S. Richardson School of Law
- Jonathan Liberman, Cancer Council Victoria
- Benn McGrady, Georgetown University Law Center
- Ted Mermin, Public Good Law Center
- Kevin Outterson, BU School of Law
- Robert Stumberg, Georgetown University Law Center
- Allyn Taylor, Georgetown University
- Tania Voon, University of Melbourne Law School
- George Annas, BU School of Law and BU School of Public Health
- Leonard Glantz, BU School of Law and BU School of Public Health
- Wendy Mariner, BU School of Law and BU School of Public Health
- Alexandra Roberts, BU School of Law
- Keynote Speaker: Dr. Michael Siegel, BU School of Public Health
The conference is open to everyone; see the schedule for details. The conference papers will be published in the American Journal of Law & Medicine.
Conference: The Governance of Tobacco in the 21st Century, February 26-27
The Harvard Global Health Institute will be co-hosting a conference on The Governance of Tobacco in the 21st Century: Strengthening National and International Policy for Global Health and Development at Harvard on February 26-27, 2013. The conference program is available here, and additional information can be found here. Space is limited. Please register by January 10.
For further information, contact Monique Bertic mbertic@hsph.harvard.edu
Tobacco Companies Must Punch Selves in Face, Court Orders
The Washington Post covers a new order by DC district court judge Gladys Kessler, arising out of an old RICO case brought by the federal government, requiring that the tobacco companies publish advertisements to confess publicly that they previously lied about the safety of smoking and manipulated cigarettes to make them more addictive. I have pulled the district court order and posted it here, along with this appendix. The order provides the exact language of the mandated advertisements, but no analysis. Below the fold, I trace the convoluted path this case and a related case have taken through the compelled speech doctrine around the First Amendment, all thanks to a single judge on the Court of Appeals.
Using the Taxing Power for Public Health
By Scott Burris
In a Perspective in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, Michelle Mello and Glenn Cohen, both professors at Harvard, write about the prospects for using the constitutional Taxing Power to adopt innovative laws to advance public health objectives. Cueing off the Supreme Court’s decision in the Affordable Care Act litigation, Mello — who is also a member of PHLR’s Methods Core — and Cohen write that the Court appears to have opened the door for “more targeted, assertive interventions to promote public health” under the Taxing Power than Congress has previously pursued. “For example, instead of merely taxing tobacco sales, the federal government could require individuals to pay a tax penalty unless they declare that they haven’t used tobacco products during the year. It could give a tax credit to people who submit documentation that their bodymass index is in the normal range or has decreased during the year or to diabetic persons who document that their glycated hemoglobin levels are controlled. It could tax individuals who fail to purchase gym memberships. …These strategies depart from traditional uses of taxes by targeting omissions and noncommercial activities that are important drivers of chronic disease.” Read the full article online at the New England Journal of Medicine online.
Tobacco Labeling and the Ethics of Persuasion
The D.C. Circuit’s recent decision vacating the FDA’s graphic labeling requirements has prompted a flood of valuable commentary about compelled speech doctrine, including Richard Epstein’s, below. While analysis of the First Amendment issues is important, I view the R.J. Reynolds case instead as an example of how emphasis on formal legal arguments may detract attention from the underlying source of public opposition.
My current research focuses on the state’s use of emotionally-gripping graphic imagery in medical and public health contexts. I focus on two examples – the “fear appeal,” exemplified by the FDA’s graphic tobacco labeling requirements; and appeals to positive emotions, such as maternal bonding, exemplified by state laws requiring that women view ultrasound images and hear the heartbeat of their own fetus before consenting to an abortion.
Both types of appeals to emotion have faced constitutional challenges – as violations of First Amendment compelled speech doctrine, or imposition of undue burdens on reproductive liberty interests. But these formalistic constitutional tests do not, in my opinion, get at the heart of the public’s concern about government persuasion using emotional imagery. Few contemporary commentators are willing to challenge requirements for scientifically valid textual warnings. Rather, it is the use of images – diseased lungs, cadavers, fetal heartbeats – that strikes a chord of concern among many critics. Whether designed to inspire fear, love, or disgust, the government’s use of these images to persuade seems to run counter to the principles of democratic discourse.
Making Sense of Tobacco Regulation: The First and Fifth Amendment Challenges
[posted on behalf of Richard Epstein]
The entire question of the FDA’s tobacco regulation is likely to spur extended commentary, given the split of opinions between the D.C. Circuit, which knocked out the packaging labels by a divided vote in RJ Reynolds v. FDA, and the earlier decision in the Sixth Circuit, that sustained the regulation. The packaging regulations have to be resolved once and for all on a national level, so the case will go up even, I think, if the D.C. Circuit decides to follow the Sixth Circuit in an en bank opinion. So what then should be done?
The issue is one that I have approached before. In the interests of full disclosure, I am a fierce opponent of smoking, who worked in from the mid-1980s into the early 1990s as a consultant for the tobacco lawyers on tort liability issues. After that time, I worked on a number of other issues, in some instances taking positions adverse to the industry. This particular post is done solely and wholly on my own.
In thinking about this case, much of the doctrinal dispute revolved around the much mooted Central Hudson test used in too many First Amendment Cases.