Industries Defy Labels

FDA is blocked from requiring graphic warnings on cigarette labels - Los Angeles Times

A federal judge has blocked the government from requiring tobacco companies to begin placing images of diseased lungs and cadavers on cigarette packages, saying the health warnings violated the firms' 1st Amendment rights.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, in a 29-page ruling Monday, granted the preliminary injunction because he believed there was a "substantial likelihood" the cigarette companies ultimately would win "on the merits of their position that these mandatory graphic images unconstitutionally compel speech."

He also said that the images went beyond disseminating "purely factual and uncontroversial information" and ventured into advocacy.

Besides the images themselves, the tobacco companies are unhappy about the amount of space the warnings would take up on their packaging.

"You have to draw the line somewhere," Wheaton said. "You can't tell them the whole box will be a warning label with a logo in the corner. The smoking companies don't come into this with clean hands either, but that doesn't mean you can take away their constitutional rights."


Judge blocks most of SF cellphone warning law - Associated Press


A federal judge on Thursday struck down most of a San Francisco ordinance that requires retailers to warn customers about cellphone radiation and its health effects.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the required warning is misleading because it implies cellphones are dangerous and unregulated, and he ordered city officials to change the wording on the fact sheet that retailers are required to distribute.

The brochures must include a statement that all cellphones must comply with the Federal Communications Commission's safety limits regarding radiation emissions, the judge said.

"The overall impression left is that cell phones are dangerous and that they have somehow escaped the regulatory process," Alsup wrote. "That impression is untrue and misleading, for all of the cell phones sold in the United States must comply with safety limits set by the FCC."

image: stopsmartmeters.org