This week, the ATS joined several other medical professional and public health organizations in submitting an amicus brief in the court challenge against the FDA’s required warning labels on cigarette packages.  As required by the 2009 Tobacco Control Act, FDA finally finalized a set of graphic warning labels that are required to be displayed on all cigarette packages.  The tobacco industry, led by Philip Morris, has filed suit in federal court to block the graphic warning labels in the case Philip Morris v FDA. 

The court challenge revolves around the government’s authority to regulate commercial speech.  The amicus brief notes the tobacco industry’s decades long effort to both provide inaccurate information to the public about the adverse health effects and to actively  to suppress factual information on the risks of tobacco use. 

The brief further notes that FDA graphic warning labels meet all the existing court precedents regarding government regulation of commercial speech, as they provide factual information, and the government has a substantial interest in educating the public on the adverse health effects of cigarette use. Further, the graphic warning labels are narrowly targeted, and materially advance the government’s interest in educating the public on the risks of tobacco used.