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• US court questions company campaign spending limits 

Corporate spending limits in U.S. political campaigns may be too broad and silence free-speech rights of small businesses like a local hairdresser, Supreme Court conservatives said on Wednesday.

But the court's four liberals, including new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said more harm than good could be done by overturning precedents upholding the restrictions on corporations and labor unions.

The comments came during arguments in a special session to consider ending long-standing limits on corporate and union spending in political campaigns. . . .

During the arguments, Roberts said a tobacco company might want to run an ad opposing a candidate who wanted to make tobacco illegal. The law restricts broadcast ads by companies and unions right before elections.

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• 'Watchdog' advocates for BPA  

Statistical Assessment Service, a major player in the public relations campaign to discredit concerns about bisphenol A, claims to be an independent media watchdog.

But a review of its finances and its Web site shows that STATS is funded by public policy organizations that promote deregulation. The Journal Sentinel found documents that show that its parent organization, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, was paid in the 1990s by Philip Morris, the tobacco company, to pick apart stories critical of smoking.

In June, STATS ran a 27,000-word assessment of the media's coverage of BPA and sharply criticized the coverage - especially stories in the Journal Sentinel - for ignoring the science. . . .

The Journal Sentinel in 2007 reviewed 258 scientific studies involving BPA and found the overwhelming majority determined the chemical to be harmful.

Gina Kolata of The New York Times and the Center for Health Care Journalists linked to the STATS report on their Web sites, identifying the group as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.

But documents show that STATS' parent organization has a history of working for corporations trying to deflect concerns about the safety of their products.

STATS and the Center for Media and Public Affairs are run by S. Robert Lichter, a professor of communication at George Mason University. The organizations share the same office and tax records.

Documents from the Tobacco Institute on file at the University of California-San Francisco show that Philip Morris contracted with the Center for Media and Public Affairs at least twice during the 1990s to monitor media coverage of tobacco. A draft dated March 31, 1994, lays out Lichter's proposal to the tobacco company:

"The Center will track and report on two or three case studies, examining all of the source material for claims and then review how the story was covered by the national media."

An e-mail from the Tobacco Institute's files, dated Feb. 18, 1999, quotes Philip Morris vice president Vic Han referring to Lichter's center as "a media watchdog group that we have contributed to over the last several years."

The center, according to the tobacco documents, was paid to conduct an analysis that takes into account the topical focus, sources and tone of presentation of tobacco stories in the media. . . .

Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS, has become BPA's fiercest advocate. He combs the Internet for stories that raise concern about the chemical, even on the most obscure blogs, and he chastises those who claim BPA can be harmful.

Butterworth offers this advice on a journalism Web site:

"Forget conventional PR! If some bratty journalist gives you a whack, whack back with obscene, jaw dropping disproportion: knee him in the groin, pull what's left of his hair out, tell him he writes in clichés, and misuses the semicolon, and stomp on his iPhone! A hack is like a bully, and charming a bully is a bit like reasoning with a psychopath or writing a novel on Twitter. For the tough cases, go Dada.  . . .  Defending the brand means exacting respect and that will come from fear not charm." . . .

The Journal Sentinel reviewed IRS documents and found the Sarah Scaife Foundation reported giving STATS $100,000 in 2007, an amount that equaled all of STATS' assets - except for $435 in income interest. The Scaife Foundation funds a number of organizations that promote public policy against regulation, including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute.

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Forget conventional PR! If some bratty journalist gives you a whack, whack back with obscene, jaw dropping disproportion: knee him in the groin, pull what's left of his hair out, tell him he writes in clichés, and misuses the semicolon, and stomp on his iPhone! . . . For the tough cases, go Dada.  . . .  Defending the brand means exacting respect and that will come from fear not charm.
Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS, who combs the Internet for stories that raise concern about BPA, even on the most obscure blogs, and chastises those who claim BPA can be harmful. According to a stellar series of Journal-Sentinel articles, secret tobacco documents reveal that STATS' parent organization is the Center for Media and Public Affairs--paid for in the 1990s by Philip Morris to pick apart stories critical of smoking. Even today, tobacco-related message boards across the country seem vulnerable to this and other techniques that may be deployed by tobacco companies and/or their hirees in this, the new world of Internet PR.

• BPA industry fights back  

For decades, the chemical industry has been able to control the debate on whether BPA is harmful to human health. Now the Food and Drug Administration, which had relied on industry-financed studies to declare the chemical safe, is reconsidering its determination. The decision is expected by Nov. 30.

"We are under attack from all fronts," Carteaux told the audience at the group's annual meeting in June.

And with increasing urgency, the industry is pushing back - hard.

The industry has launched an unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics - and people - the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation. This time, the industry's arsenal includes state-of-the-art technology. Their modern-day Trojan horses: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube.

A four-month investigation by the Journal Sentinel reveals a highly calibrated campaign by plastics makers to fight federal regulation of BPA, downplay its risks and discredit anyone who characterizes the chemical as a health threat. The newspaper examined thousands of pages of Internal Revenue Service reports, disclosure forms and e-mails between government scientists and lobbyists as well as the industry's own public relations materials.

The documents offer a rare glimpse at the hardball politics of chemical regulation, where judgments about safety are made not necessarily on the merits of science but because of the clout of lobbyists working the system. . . .

Details of meetings between federal regulators and chemical industry lobbyists are found in the archives of the Tobacco Institute, the lobby group of the tobacco industry. A court settlement in 1998 disbanded the institute and opened the records to the public.

Lobbyists for tobacco closely followed the government's assessment of BPA because of concerns that a ban on the chemical would affect cigarette filters and plastic packaging. The two industries share the same lobby firm, the Weinberg Group.

The Tobacco Institute documents show administrators from the FDA routinely turned to chemical industry scientists to establish the government's safety level for BPA. Government scientists relied on test results performed by industry scientists without independent confirmation. . . .

Chemical makers and plastics industry executives are putting up their own versions of news clips on social media outlets such as YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Twitter and blogs. Often, they are disguised as neutral, unbiased information and rarely reveal the source.

So what might look to consumers researching BPA on the Internet as independent information are often stories written by chemical industry public relations writers.

Allegiances are not always explained. The most impassioned defense of BPA on the blogs comes from Trevor Butterworth, editor of Statistical Assessment Service, also known as STATS. He regularly combs the Internet for stories about BPA and offers comments without revealing his ties to industry. . . .

STATS claims to be independent and nonpartisan. But a review of its financial reports shows it is a branch of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. That group was paid by the tobacco industry to monitor news stories about the dangers of tobacco.

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• U.S. senator concerned about finances at UC San Francisco medical school 

A powerful U.S. senator has demanded more information about the financial health of UC San Francisco's medical school, raising questions about whether the entire University of California system may be mismanaging federal research funds.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has requested that UCSF supply documentation on the amount of federal funds it has received during the last five years, including details of an external financial review performed by the accounting firm KPMG. . . .

Grassley has interjected himself in a long-running and nasty dispute between the medical school and its former dean, David A. Kessler. Kessler, who headed the Food and Drug Administration during the Clinton administration, was fired by UCSF in December 2007 after repeatedly complaining that he had been misled about the school's finances.

Kessler since has sued the University of California in a federal whistle-blower action, seeking reinstatement to his former position, his lost pay and benefits, and punitive damages. He also is party to an ongoing UC administrative review of his firing.

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• No Legal Shield in Drug Labeling, Justices Rule 

In a major setback for business groups that had hoped to build a barrier against injury lawsuits seeking billions of dollars, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said state juries may award damages for harm from unsafe drugs even though their manufacturers had satisfied federal regulators.

The ruling could have significant implications beyond drug manufacturing. Many companies have sought tighter federal regulation in recent years in part to shield themselves from litigation. . . .

The Supreme Court has been sympathetic in recent years to arguments that federal law should pre-empt state injury suits. Last year, in Riegel v. Medtronic, an eight-justice majority of the court ruled that many state suits concerning injuries caused by medical devices were barred by the express language in a federal law. Wednesday's decision addressed implied pre-emption, a different legal standard.

Drug companies and other businesses, supported by the Bush administration, had hoped the Vermont case would establish broader protections. They relied not on express language in a statute enacted by Congress, as in Riegel, but on what might be implied from federal regulatory standards and policies -- in this case, from the drug agency's authority to approve drug labels.

Producers of goods as different as antifreeze, fireworks, popcorn, cigarettes and light bulbs have sought to take refuge behind federal oversight in recent years to fend off litigation. After Wednesday's decision, those efforts are most likely to succeed if they are based on express language in a Congressional statute or a specific regulatory action that makes compliance with state requirements impossible.

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• Ex-Grace Officials on Trial in Asbestos Poisoning  

LIBBY, Mont. — A reckoning in one of American history’s worst industrial disasters, which unfolded here over seven decades as an asbestos-tainted mineral was dug from the ground and processed, begins Thursday when five former mine executives go to trial on federal criminal charges.

The case is highly unusual in that prosecutors have generally avoided criminal charges in the broad arena of asbestos law, leaving the issue to the civil courts.

But the story of the now-closed mine and its adjacent mill is different, because it involves not only miners but also their families and neighbors, many of whom became ill just living in this remote northwestern corner of Montana.

At least 200 deaths and thousands of illnesses are known to be related to the town’s exposure to the mine’s billowing dust clouds of vermiculite . . .

The company did ban smoking at the mine in 1978 — smoking compounds the dangers of asbestos, doctors say — and also issued respirator masks to workers. But showers that the miners could have used at the end of their shifts before heading home were ruled out, because they might have overly worried people. . . .

Legal experts say that some of the prosecution’s case could be particularly hard to prove, especially the charges that Grace executives obstructed justice by obfuscating in interviews with investigators at the Environmental Protection Agency, and then conspired to cover up their knowledge of the asbestos risks.

“Companies have a right under the First Amendment, established by the Supreme Court and recently reinforced, to advocate on their own behalf,” said Lester Brickman, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.

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• New York Times Falls on Slim's Expensive Loan  

New York Times Co shares fell on Tuesday after the company agreed to a pricey $250 million loan from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim that it will use to repay debt coming due in May.

The loan is part of a package that would give the telecommunications tycoon a prominent financial role in the Times, one of the most famous newspaper publishers in the world, but one that has been struggling to fix its financial difficulties amid a sharp drop in advertising revenue.

Most importantly for the Times, it allows the publisher, under family control for more than a century, extra time to find ways to sell assets and improve its business.

Times shares fell 50 cents, or 7.8 percent, to $5.91 on the New York Stock Exchange, worse than the 3 percent drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Tuesday afternoon.

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• NEJM study: Americans owe 5 months of their lives to cleaner air 

A new study by researchers at Brigham Young University and Harvard School of Public Health shows that average life expectancy in 51 U.S. cities increased nearly three years over recent decades, and approximately five months of that increase came thanks to cleaner air.

"Such a significant increase in life expectancy attributable to reducing air pollution is remarkable," said C. Arden Pope III, a BYU epidemiologist and lead author on the study in the Jan. 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "We find that we're getting a substantial return on our investments in improving our air quality. Not only are we getting cleaner air that improves our environment, but it is improving our public health."

The research matched two sets of data from 51 cities across the nation: changes in air pollution between about 1980 and about 2000; and residents' life expectancies during those years. The scientists applied advanced statistical models to account for other factors that could affect average life spans, such as changes in population, income, education, migration, demographics and cigarette smoking.

In cities that had previously been the most polluted and cleaned up the most, the cleaner air added approximately 10 months to the average resident's life.

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• Exxon Valdez Award Cut to $507.5 Million by Top Court (Update2) 

A divided U.S. Supreme Court slashed the $2.5 billion punitive damage award against Exxon Mobil Corp. for the 1989 Valdez oil spill to $507.5 million, ending a 19-year legal saga over the worst such disaster in U.S. history.

The justices, voting 5-3, said the original award, which would have been increased by more than $2 billion with accrued interest, was excessive under federal maritime law. The $507.5 million figure is equal to the economic damages that a trial judge determined were suffered by thousands of Alaskan commercial fishermen involved in the case.

Writing for the court, Justice David Souter pointed to studies showing that punitive damages awarded in maritime cases were generally less than the amount of compensatory damages.

``A 1:1 ratio, which is above the median award, is a fair upper limit in such maritime cases,'' Souter wrote. . . .

The court divided largely along ideological lines. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy joined Souter in the majority. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented.

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• Legal Theory Seeks to Curtail Tort Cases  

In 2001, after years as a lawyer for pharmaceutical and tobacco companies, Daniel Troy was tapped as President George W. Bush's general counsel of the Food and Drug Administration. Almost immediately, the FDA filed several friend of the court briefs on behalf of medical device and drug companies being sued in state courts. The briefs argued that it is not the place of state judges and juries to question the safety of a drug that FDA scientists have approved.

Troy was applying the preemption principle -- which argues that federal regulations of a product preempt consumers from suing the maker of that product in state civil courts. Troy left the FDA in 2004, but the U.S. Supreme Court subscribed to his logic earlier this year in a ruling that preempted lawsuits against makers of medical device. It could do the same this fall, in a case about consumers' right to sue drug companies. The Bush administration's once obscure legal argument for curtailing lawsuits against industry has become the nation's predominant opinion.

But at a congressional hearing Wednesday, Democrats threw down the gauntlet. The House oversight committee said that it has had many disagreements with this administration, but this preemption principle is offensive. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Ia.) spent most of the day arguing that for 100 years FDA regulations have coexisted, and benefited, from state civil suits. If the preemption principle prevails in the court this fall, the committee said Congress would write legislation saying that FDA regulations do not take away a consumer's right to sue.

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• Incense Sticks 'Pose Toxic Health Risk' 

Burning incense may be good for your spiritual wellbeing, but they could damage your health.

The fragrant smoke, used in religious ceremonies and to scent rooms, contains a cocktail of harmful chemicals linked to physical disorders, scientists say.

Joss sticks contain carbon monoxide and other toxic fumes

The research suggests that breathing in the toxic fumes is as bad for the health as inhaling tobacco smoke. . . .

The researchers, from Taiwan and the US, urged people to keep rooms ventiliated when burning the sticks.

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• Court Gives Business 2 Wins, 1 Loss 

The Supreme Court sided with business in two cases Wednesday that limit state lawsuits against medical device manufacturers and invalidate Maine's regulations of package delivery companies.

The court denied business groups a third victory, however, in ruling that retirement plan participants could sue to recover losses.

The two favorable outcomes for business relied on federal laws that the court said pre-empt state action.

Meir Feder, a New York appeals court specialist, says the decisions are part of a trend that generally has limited the ability of individuals to sue businesses.

"There is a lot of skepticism by the court about the benefit of allowing private civil lawsuits against companies and a lot of concern about the downsides of litigation — deterring investment and raising costs," Feder said. . . .

Maine's law requires delivery companies to intercept packages from unlicensed tobacco sellers and to verify the age of buyers. This requirement hits delivery companies with huge additional costs, the industry said.

Wednesday's ruling could enable the industry to argue that similar laws in other states are invalid. The decision could clear the way for companies to challenge an aggressive campaign by New York that led the industry's biggest players to stop shipping cigarettes directly to consumers from illegal Internet sellers.

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• Justices Shield Medical Devices From Lawsuits 

Makers of medical devices like implantable defibrillators or breast implants are immune from liability for personal injuries as long as the Food and Drug Administration approved the device before it was marketed and it meets the agency’s specifications, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

The 8-to-1 decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which for years has sought broad authority to pre-empt tougher state regulation.

In 2004, the administration reversed longstanding federal policy and began arguing that “premarket approval” of a new medical device by the F.D.A. overrides most claims for damages under state law. Because federal law makes no provision for damage suits against device makers, injured patients have turned to state law and have won substantial awards.

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• Grace Bets On Winning Asbestos Lawsuits  

W.R. Grace followed the same tack for a while. But pushed into bankruptcy, it now is trying the novel approach of asking a bankruptcy judge to declare many of the roughly 100,000 claims it faces to be invalid.

The company is making the request as part of its effort to emerge from bankruptcy. In order for Grace to exit bankruptcy, the judge must rule on what liabilities the company faces, and that means deciding how many of the claims are valid and what they might total. The judge's decision does not resolve the individual claims, but it could set a standard for further litigation.

The trial started two weeks ago, and already Judge Judith Fitzgerald has allowed the company to introduce testimony purporting to show that diseases were over-diagnosed in many cases. . . .

"This case and this trial present the first opportunity for a federal court to set a standard on the basis of which the tens of thousands of asbestos claims that are being pursued can be resolved based upon their merit," said David Bernick, a lawyer representing Grace who has a long history defending companies against similar lawsuits. . . .

Asbestos lawsuits have been a prominent battleground for the competing claims of trial lawyers and corporations over the years, a debate that has played out over weight loss pills, tobacco, silicon breast implants and other products.

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• Murdoch Reaches Out for Even More 

In the fall of 2003, a piece of Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling media empire was in jeopardy.

Congress was on the verge of limiting any company from owning local television stations that reached more than 35 percent of American homes. Mr. Murdoch’s Fox stations reached nearly 39 percent, meaning he would have to sell some.

A strike force of Mr. Murdoch’s lobbyists joined other media companies in working on the issue. The White House backed the industry, and in a late-night meeting just before Thanksgiving, Congressional leaders agreed to raise the limit — to 39 percent.

One leader of the Congressional movement to limit ownership was Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi. But in the end, he, too, agreed to the compromise. It turns out he had a business connection to Mr. Murdoch. Months before, HarperCollins, Mr. Murdoch’s publishing house, had signed a $250,000 book deal to publish Mr. Lott’s memoir, “Herding Cats,” records and interviews show.

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