Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

CQ Today (6/2, Armstrong) reports that Senate legislation authorizing the FDA to regulate tobacco (HR 1256) "will come to the Senate floor Tuesday, after two committee chairmen persuaded Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to cancel a Tuesday cloture vote on a railroad antitrust bill (S 146) that was the only item on the calendar ahead of the tobacco bill."

The bill "would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wide new powers to regulate tobacco products. It would levy user fees on tobacco products and create a new department within the FDA with the authority to regulate tobacco marketing and advertising, control the amount of nicotine in products, and bar such product claims as 'light' and 'low-tar.'" While "floor action on the bill could take up most of the week," the bill "is expected to eventually pass."

The AP (6/3, Abrams) reports that on Tuesday the Senate voted 84-11 to advance the regulatory legislation. Since only sixty votes were needed, "the success in reaching that threshold increases the likelihood that the Senate will move to a final vote by the end of the week. If the House concurs with the Senate measure, it would go to President Barack Obama, who is ready to sign it into law."

The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (5/21) reported “tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable death in America,” killing more than 400,000 Americans annually and costing the nation $96 billion in health care bills per annum. Every day, another “1,200 lives are lost due to tobacco consumption and over 1,000 kids become new regular smokers”.

Despite being the deadliest product sold in America, tobacco products are among the least regulated. They are “exempt from basic health regulations that apply to other consumer products,” which allows tobacco companies to employ deceptive marketing techniques to attract children to their “deadly and addictive” products, “deceive consumers about the harm their products cause, and resist changes that could make their products less harmful.” Therefore, Congress has the opportunity to protect thousands of lives by passing the regulatory legislation.

As a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer, that has represented too many lung cancer victims; I consider this legislation now working its way through the Senate welcome news.