A review of internal tobacco company documents reveals that members of the tobacco industry and its corporate attorneys created an international scientific consultants program to influence public opinion on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). This program was shaped as a "product" to protect the industry from international threats of smoking restrictions. Additionally, this program was used to promote a scientific backdrop supporting the industry's position on ETS that differed from regulatory agencies and published scientific research. In this report, we detail the pervasive nature of the so-called ETS Consultants Program, outline the wide range of activities undertaken by the consultants, and highlight the role of the industry's corporate attorneys in creating and managing this program. We suggest heightened monitoring of industry-created scientific organizations, further tobacco document research, and wide dissemination of such work.
A belief that the government does (and should) have broad authority to protect and improve health, coupled with an understanding that collective action is often necessary to address public health challenges effectively, is central to the public health mindset. But many are questioning whether this vision of a strong government role is applicable to non-communicable disease threats and the social determinants of health. Arguments about public health paternalism are playing a role in political opposition to new law and policy interventions and in legal challenges aimed at striking down existing public health laws. This article explores the forces behind the cultural and political resonance of concerns about public health paternalism, "personal responsibility," and the "nanny state" and attempts to outlines a potential path forward from here.
It is easy to identify health laws that have helped Americans live longer, healthier lives. Indeed, most of the greatest public health accomplishments of the last century depended on legal action. The coordination of research, policy development, public education, and advocacy in the tobacco control movement shows that success is attainable even in the face of powerful industry opposition. 1 The development of automobile safety laws during the past 30 years shows how well-conducted, properly diffused research can instigate policy cascades and guide policy refinement over time. 2 These examples of ''interventional health law'' 3-using law as a tool of intervention-also illustrate that developing, enacting, evaluating, and spreading health laws is not just the work of lawyers. In these and many examples like them, health advocates, researchers, public health practitioners, and lawyers work in strategic partnership to improve population health through law and policy. Consistent with the literature on the art and science of evidence translation, 4,5 these efforts were built on effective practices, such as cultivating partnerships among diverse stakeholders. These partnerships promote (1) research that is targeted at the most strategically relevant questions; (2) the development of model laws based on the best available science; (3) sophisticated community education and advocacy campaigns to win, defend, and enforce effective policies; and (4) enforcement to ensure that improved public health outcomes are achieved and sustained. 6-8 The starting point for this commentary is that public health law is not just the work of lawyers but must also be owned by the range of public health disciplines as a transdisciplinary activity. 9 Knowing how to translate what we have learned from research and experience into effective public health law interventions is not the problem. The problem is that the public health system, writ large, does not deploy wellrecognized best practices consistently or strategically across topics. Legal interventions affecting millions of Americans are often not scaled or evaluated for years, if at all. Innovations that show promise in research or practice do not spread, or they spread too slowly. 10,11 The pace can be even slower when innovations are faced with organized ideological or industry opposition. 12 Success requires investment in the same legal infrastructure that was created for tobacco control and alcohol policy and is newly underway in obesity prevention. ''Legal infrastructure'' refers to the people, methods, and tools needed to move a policy from conception to widespread implementation. The first step in establishing this infrastructure is defining its elements. After publication of the 1988 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report The Future of Public Health, 13 public health as a field embarked on an effort to define, measure, and improve the public health system. 14,15 Yet, despite its key role, law largely escaped that systematic treatment. Two of the 10 essential public health services exp...
The Tobacco Control Legal Consortium is a national “network” designed to tap expertise about tobacco control legislation and to leverage existing resources. Based at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Consortium supports local counsel with research, strategic advice, sample materials and pleadings, and amicus briefs. The Consortium’s priorities are to support capacity nationally, to offer education, and to perform outreach activities to a variety of audiences.The Consortium seeks to advance policy change by making legal expertise more readily available to the tobacco control community. Legal issues are inevitably involved in policy change. The Consortium does not provide legal representation, but conducts analysis and research. They publish on important and emerging legal issues as well as on specific cases, assist in the development of legislation, and train public health practitioners and policy makers on recurring legal issues.
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