Kevin Schroth, associate professor at the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies and the Rutgers School of Public Health, is available to discuss this week’s decision by a federal judge to block implementation of graphic cigarette warnings ordered by the Food and Drug Administration.
The following quote from Schroth also is available for pick up:
”In 2009, Congress ordered the FDA to make graphic warnings for all cigarette packs in the United States showing that cigarettes are dangerous. Warnings like this are required in more than 100 countries around the world. But the tobacco industry has demonstrated, once again, that it can deploy lawyers to undermine public health. The industry filed its lawsuit in a friendly district in Texas, and it got the result it wanted. First, the court sat on this case for more than two years. Second, the court struck down eminently reasonable warnings based on the dubious notion that the depictions of negative health consequences could be misinterpreted and because the FDA could have pursued weaker measures to protect public health. This is a travesty.”
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