Jump to full article: American Medical News, 2009-09-14
Author: Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff
Intro: A lawsuit by a group of tobacco companies is the opening salvo against a new federal law giving the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate the industry. The legal maneuver prompted harsh criticism from the medical community and public health organizations that strongly backed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed by President Obama in June.
The federal statute for the first time gives the FDA the power to regulate the sale and distribution of tobacco products. While the law does not allow the agency to ban tobacco sales, it does give the FDA the authority to reduce nicotine levels, require new warning labels and bar certain marketing tactics, especially those aimed at children. . . .
The ban at question in that case, however, went well beyond the new FDA regulations, said Richard A. Daynard. He is president of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, a legal research center in Boston that focuses on tobacco liability and other public health issues. The Lorillard decision also centered on the Massachusetts attorney general's lack of authority to regulate tobacco.
"But because Congress, by a substantial majority and many years of consideration, has adopted this [federal law] and indicated in its findings of fact that these provisions were necessary to save hundreds of thousands of lives a year, the Supreme Court is not likely to view it that way and can easily distinguish these findings" from prior rulings, said Daynard, a law professor at Northeastern University School of Law.
He also noted that other federal laws have banned cigarette advertising on television and radio for more than 40 years without legal threat.
Daynard suggested it was no accident that the latest case was filed in Kentucky,
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