A federal judge in Kentucky has rejected a motion by tobacco companies to block key provisions of the new law giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate tobacco products.

A group of cigarette manufacturers have filed suit to block parts of new landmark legislation that gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broad new powers to regulate tobacco. The suit comes as the FDA is gearing up to enforce the law, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which President Obama signed into law in June.

In 1999, speaking to physicians, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, a Reagan appointee retained by Clinton, decried the hold of Big Tobacco on health care legislation. He called tobacco “the sleaziest, slimiest, most devious industry in the world,” whose members “also are the smartest and the richest," and then added. "...that’s a bad combination.”* Koop remarked: The biggest scandal in Washington was the Republican Senate selling out to the tobacco industry. Always prescient, Koop was drawing attention to a coup d'etat: a bloodless takeover of government by big business...one that would drastically effect us for over a decade and is still derailing healthcare reform efforts today. Koop warned, "We have lost control of medicine to the business world."

New legislation granting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jurisdiction over tobacco products represents a serious compromise on the part of tobacco control advocates, according to to the authors of a new essay in a medical journal.

If you’re a doctor, it might be a bit unseemly to run a funeral home next door. If you’re a teacher, there might be some ethical concerns with peddling crack to your kids during recess. And if you’re a pharmacy?

Tobacco is a health problem directly resulting from the impact of globalisation. As other expects put it: “[Tobacco] provides examples of the ways in which globalisation, trade liberalisation, modern communication and marketing, direct foreign investment and the growth of multi-national corporations can impact on the poor, on life expectancies and health status, and on the ability of national governments to legislate for and implement tobacco control policies.”

TheFatLadySings reminds us that good health is broader than just the quality and availability medical treatment. The environment counts too. "Proper environmental management is the key to avoiding the quarter of all preventable illnesses which are directly caused by environmental factors. The environment influences our health in many ways — through exposures to physical, chemical and biological risk factors, and through related changes in our behaviour in response to those factors. Thirteen million deaths annually are due to preventable environmental causes. Preventing environmental risk could save as many as four million lives a year, in children alone, mostly in developing countries. Public health policy effects our health. Good policy promotes good health. Poor policy results in poor health. Listening to the MSM these days, one would think that government involvement in health care is the moral equivalent of Chernobyl. In fact, the opposite is true.

As President Obama prepares to sign a bill giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversight of the tobacco industry, a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers shows that tobacco manufacturers have continually changed the ingredients and the design of their cigarettes over time, even if those changes have exceeded acceptable product variance guidelines. The result, say the researchers, is that consumers who buy the same brand of product are not made aware of how that product has been altered and what effect those alterations might have on their levels of addiction or harm.

Impending sweeping new regulation will force the same disclosures for a pack of cigarettes, as with a can of soda or box of pasta, advocates say, hoping the new tobacco controls further limit smoking. Supporters of the new tobacco regulation, which will take effect once President Obama signs the bill, also put the new law in context of overall healthcare reform.

The winners of the first semi-regular Loon Award are Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Mars) and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-Asshatistan) for their speeches on the House floor opposing new tobacco regulation by comparing lettuce smoking to tobacco smoking and tobacco abstinence programs to sex education. WTF?

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 307-97 allowing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products from cigarette content to marketing.

Ultimately, smokers aren't unreasonable. The vast majority of us want very badly to quit. And you won't see us protesting increased regulation or lawsuits against Big Tobacco. Some of us are more angry at the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel than non-smokers could ever be.

The full Senate is poised to vote on a new law ("Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act") regulating tobacco products and their marketing, bringing them under the FDA tent. Cause for some joy, certainly -- but smokeless nicotine products pose new threats, especially to kids. E-cigarettes from China and dissolving nicotine treats from RJR and Phillip Morris will keep addictions alive, if not their users.

Major US, Canadian and British life and health insurance companies have billions of dollars invested in tobacco companies, a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine said. Wesley Boyd, the study's lead author, found that at least 4.4 billion dollars in insurance company funds are invested in companies whose affiliates produce cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco. "Despite calls upon the insurance industry to get out of the tobacco business by physicians and others, insurers continue to put their profits above people's health," said Boyd, a faculty member of Harvard Medical School. "It's clear their top priority is making money, not safeguarding people's well-being," he wrote.

The court, upholding a trial judge’s landmark ruling, found Big Tobacco liable in a decades-long conspiracy to deceive consumers about the adverse health effects of smoking, a substantial win for the Justice Department in a closely-watched RICO case. The appeals court, however, rejected the government’s request to seize billions of dollars in corporate profit from companies that include Altria Group, Reynolds, and Brown and Williamson.

My first post on Everday Citizen about my personal experiences relating to tobacco and why we should support policies that ensure Clean Indoor Air

"Now in the Senate seat formerly held by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ms. Gillibrand plays down her work as a lawyer representing Philip Morris, saying she was a junior associate with little control over the cases she was handed and limited involvement in defending the tobacco maker. But a review of thousands of documents and interviews with dozens of lawyers and industry experts indicate that Ms. Gillibrand was involved in some of the most sensitive matters related to the defense of the tobacco giant as it confronted pivotal legal battles beginning in the mid-1990s."

With falling revenues, many states previously reluctant to tax tobacco sales have initiated such taxes, or are considering them. Some states with already high taxes have increased their taxation. And not just to reduce the number of smokers, or to fund health or smoking-cessation programs, but to generate new revenue. Projections for such tax revenues are usually high, but can be counted upon to rise, even with a federal tax. And, studies show that a 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces consumption by 3 percent to 5 percent.

A coalition of health advocacy groups is thanking a longtime tobacco industry foe for once again introducing a bill to require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that smokers can sue Altria and other tobacco companies for allegedly deceptive marketing of "light" or "low tar" cigarettes. The high court said such lawsuits are allowed under federal law in a 5-4 decision that will add weight to massive claims filed by ex-smokers against Altria, whose Philip Morris unit is best known for Marlboro cigarettes, and other big tobacco producers. The case involved three residents of the northeast state of Maine who puffed on Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights for 15 years and had argued they had a right under state law to sue the companies for allegedly deceiving smokers that light cigarettes were healthier.