Free Republic

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Four of the five largest U.S. tobacco companies sued the federal government Tuesday over new graphic cigarette labels that include the sewn-up corpse of a smoker and a picture of diseased lungs, saying the warnings violate their free speech rights and will cost millions of dollars to print. The companies, led by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Lorillard Tobacco Co., said the warnings no longer simply convey facts to allow people to make a decision whether to smoke. They instead force them to put government anti-smoking advocacy more prominently on their packs than their own brands, the...

In 1993, the EPA published a report claiming that secondhand smoke (SHS -- also sometimes known as environmental tobacco smoke or ETS) causes three thousand deaths from lung cancer every year. Anyone doubting this result has been subject to attack and depicted as a toady of the tobacco lobby. The attacks have been led by a smear blog called DeSmogBlog, financed by the Canadian PR firm of James Hoggan, and have been taken up with great enthusiasm by self-styled "science historian" Professor Naomi Oreskes. The tobacco smoking issue has also become a favorite tool for discrediting climate skeptics. A prime...

Jury says flight attendant no victim of seconhand smoke Copyright © 2002 AP Online By CATHERINE WILSON, AP Business Writer MIAMI (September 5, 2002 7:22 p.m. EDT) - A jury rejected a claim against tobacco companies by a former flight attendant who blames her sinus problems on secondhand smoke in airline cabins. The six-member panel agreed Thursday that Suzette Janoff suffers from sinusitis, rhinitis, allergies and other ear, nose and throat problems, but concluded that her on-the-job exposure to smoke was not the cause. "All the questions were answered in the medical records," said Anthony Upshaw, attorney for Brown...