US Appeals Court Agrees Tobacco Companies Lied

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Diane Bartz
May 23, 2009 - Reuters

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Cigarette companies systematically lied for decades to hide the dangers of smoking, a U.S. appeals court said on Friday as it upheld a trial judge's racketeering verdict.

Cigarette companies systematically lied for decades to hide the dangers of smoking, a U.S. appeals court said on Friday as it upheld a trial judge's racketeering verdict. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)But in a blow to anti-smoking groups, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also upheld U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler's 2006 rejection of plans to force the companies to fund smoking cessation programs, which could have cost them billions of dollars.

The appeals court's three-judge panel ruled that the companies, including Altria Group Inc and its Philip Morris USA unit, violated federal anti-racketeering laws by conspiring to lie about the dangers of smoking.

"Defendants knew of their falsity at the time and made the statements with the intent to deceive," the court said in a 92-page ruling. "Thus, we are not dealing with accidental falsehoods, or sincere attempts to persuade; Defendants' liability rests on deceits perpetrated with knowledge of their falsity."

Other companies appealing Kessler's ruling were the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco unit of Reynolds American Inc, Lorillard Inc, Vector Group Ltd's Liggett Group, British American Tobacco Plc and its Brown & Williamson unit, as well as now defunct industry groups: the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute.

The case was filed in 1999 by the Clinton administration, which sought $289 billion in damages.

During the original trial, which began in 2004, the Justice Department under the Bush administration scaled back its demands to $14 billion for anti-smoking campaigns.

Kessler ultimately ruled the companies broke the law and could no longer use expressions such as "low tar" or "light" in their cigarette marketing. But she said she did not have the authority to force them to fund a smoking cessation program.

Philip Morris, Altria and Reynolds said on Friday that they would press on with their legal fight, although they had not yet decided if they would ask for a rehearing before the entire appeals court or ask the Supreme Court to consider the case.

Tobacco companies are already paying billions of dollars a year under a 1998 settlement agreement with state governments that also bars targeting children in cigarette advertising and puts other restrictions on cigarette ads.

Legislation working its way through the U.S. Congress would give the Food and Drug Administration power to control the advertising and manufacture of tobacco products.

CORRECTIVE STATEMENTS

In its ruling on Friday, the appeals court upheld an order requiring warnings on cigarette packages and demanding that tobacco sellers publish "corrective statements" on corporate web sites. They would also have to buy full-page advertisements in thirty-five major newspapers and put at least ten advertisements on a major television network.

In a victory for convenience stores and other retailers, however, the appeals court said the lower court overstepped its authority in requiring merchandisers to add countertop signs with the "corrective statements."

The National Association of Convenience Stores said the requirement would take away valuable counter space and cost the industry $82 million in lost sales annually.

The appeals court was highly critical of the tobacco companies, rejecting their arguments that they had never advertised "light" cigarettes as less dangerous.

The court also pointed to evidence that the companies knew that second-hand smoke was dangerous, dismissing their assertions that there was no "scientific consensus."

"Again defendants miss the point," the ruling said. "Regardless of whether a scientific consensus existed at any point, defendants may be liable for fraud if they made statements knowing they were false or misleading."

The court also found that tobacco companies were deceitful in asserting they were unaware that tobacco is highly addictive, citing numerous findings "all unchallenged --

(which) support the district court's conclusion that defendants were aware that nicotine creates a chemical dependency far stronger than a mere habit."

The decision follows a ruling by the Supreme Court in December that tobacco firms can be sued under state law for deceptive advertising of "light" cigarettes.

That case involved three longtime smokers from Maine who said Philip Morris was deceptive in advertising cigarettes as "light" or with "lowered tar and nicotine."

The Tobacco Products Liability Project said the Supreme Court decision, along with Friday's ruling, should help the 40 or so lawsuits filed nationwide which accuse cigarette companies of deceptively marketing light cigarettes.

"We're delighted with the opinion today," said Edward Sweda, of the advocacy group. "The government's presentation of the evidence provides a roadmap for plaintiff's attorneys."

Zen Moment of the Weekend

"In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill...we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one." -- Plato

Wingnut Radio Host Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture

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May 22, 2009 - Library Grape

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A rightwing radio host set out to prove that waterboarding isn't torture.

Things didn't exactly go accordingly to plan:

And so it went Friday morning when WLS radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided to subject himself to the controversial practice of waterboarding live on his show.

Mancow decided to tackle the divisive issue head on -- actually it was head down, while restrained and reclining.

"I want to find out if it's torture," Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture...

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

Last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment -- and came to a similar conclusion. The conservative writer said he found the treatment terrifying, and was haunted by it for months afterward. "Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture," Hitchens concluded in the article.

This from a guy who was described as a younger version of Rush Limbaugh.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Mancow-Takes-on-Waterboarding-and-Loses.html

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808

Blue Double Cross

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Paul Krugman
May 22, 2009 - The New York Times

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That didn't take long. Less than two weeks have passed since much of the medical-industrial complex made a big show of working with President Obama on health care reform — and the double-crossing is already well under way. Indeed, it's now clear that even as they met with the president, pretending to be cooperative, insurers were gearing up to play the same destructive role they did the last time health reform was on the agenda.

So here's the question: Will Mr. Obama gloss over the reality of what's happening, and try to preserve the appearance of cooperation? Or will he honor his own pledge, made back during the campaign, to go on the offensive against special interests if they stand in the way of reform?

The story so far: on May 11 the White House called a news conference to announce that major players in health care, including the American Hospital Association and the lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans, had come together to support a national effort to control health care costs.

The fact sheet on the meeting, one has to say, was classic Obama in its message of post-partisanship and, um, hope. "For too long, politics and point-scoring have prevented our country from tackling this growing crisis," it said, adding, "The American people are eager to put the old Washington ways behind them."

But just three days later the hospital association insisted that it had not, in fact, promised what the president said it had promised — that it had made no commitment to the administration's goal of reducing the rate at which health care costs are rising by 1.5 percentage points a year. And the head of the insurance lobby said that the idea was merely to "ramp up" savings, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, the insurance industry is busily lobbying Congress to block one crucial element of health care reform, the public option — that is, offering Americans the right to buy insurance directly from the government as well as from private insurance companies. And at least some insurers are gearing up for a major smear campaign.

On Monday, just a week after the White House photo-op, The Washington Post reported that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina was preparing to run a series of ads attacking the public option. The planning for this ad campaign must have begun quite some time ago.

The Post has the storyboards for the ads, and they read just like the infamous Harry and Louise ads that helped kill health care reform in 1993. Troubled Americans are shown being denied their choice of doctor, or forced to wait months for appointments, by faceless government bureaucrats. It's a scary image that might make some sense if private health insurance — which these days comes primarily via HMOs — offered all of us free choice of doctors, with no wait for medical procedures. But my health plan isn't like that. Is yours?

"We can do a lot better than a government-run health care system," says a voice-over in one of the ads. To which the obvious response is, if that's true, why don't you? Why deny Americans the chance to reject government insurance if it's really that bad?

For none of the reform proposals currently on the table would force people into a government-run insurance plan. At most they would offer Americans the choice of buying into such a plan.

And the goal of the insurers is to deny Americans that choice. They fear that many people would prefer a government plan to dealing with private insurance companies that, in the real world as opposed to the world of their ads, are more bureaucratic than any government agency, routinely deny clients their choice of doctor, and often refuse to pay for care.

Which brings us back to Mr. Obama.

Back during the Democratic primary campaign, Mr. Obama argued that the Clintons had failed in their 1993 attempt to reform health care because they had been insufficiently inclusive. He promised instead to gather all the stakeholders, including the insurance companies, around a "big table." And that May 11 event was, of course, intended precisely to show this big-table strategy in action.

But what if interest groups showed up at the big table, then blocked reform? Back then, Mr. Obama assured voters that he would get tough: "If those insurance companies and drug companies start trying to run ads with Harry and Louise, I'll run my own ads as president. I'll get on television and say 'Harry and Louise are lying.' "

The question now is whether he really meant it.

The medical-industrial complex has called the president's bluff. It polished its image by showing up at the big table and promising cooperation, then promptly went back to doing all it can to block real change. The insurers and the drug companies are, in effect, betting that Mr. Obama will be afraid to call them out on their duplicity.

It's up to Mr. Obama to prove them wrong.