Whatever happened to truth in labeling?

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at windmills - Cigarette labeling - Brief article

Eric Holder's faintness of heart with regard to the big banks seems to extend to the tobacco companies. Two years ago, you will recall that the Food and Drug Administration announced that tobacco companies would have to display on cigarette packages pictures of the harm done by tobacco, including images of diseased lungs and of a man inhaling smoke through a tracheotomy tube. At the time, I thought, Boy, that's great, that will really make smokers think about the damage they're doing to themselves. But, of course, the tobacco companies took the FDA to court. They obtained a ruling from the rightwing intellectual pygmies of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the requirement violated tobacco companies' First Amendment rights. If you can see even a shred of merit in that...