When Public Health Is Eroded by Junk Science: Muzzling Anti-Vaxxer FEAR Speech - And the First Amendment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara P. Billauer
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Junk Science

scholarly journals Public Health and the First Amendment

2015 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-462
Author(s):  
JOSHUA M. SHARFSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
First Amendment

Defining Commercial Speech in the Context of Food Marketing

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (S1) ◽  
pp. 40-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Pomeranz ◽  
Sabrina Adler
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Health Problem ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
The United States ◽  
Food Marketing ◽  
Policy Strategy ◽  
Commercial Speech ◽  
Poor Nutrition

Obesity is a public health problem in the United States. Experts have identified the regulation of food marketing as a policy strategy to address obesity and poor nutrition. However, the First Amendment can be a barrier to reducing exposure to problematic food marketing. In recent years, courts have become increasingly protective of speech, and particularly of “commercial speech,” or advertising, which can make it more difficult to regulate certain marketing practices.

When the First Amendment and Public Health Collide: The Court's Increasingly Strict Constitutional Scrutiny of Health Regulations That Restrict Commercial Speech

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 690-712
Author(s):  
Samantha Rauer
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Intermediate Level ◽  
Prescribing Habits ◽  
Commercial Speech ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Health Regulations ◽  
State Board

In Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., the Supreme Court departed from traditional commercial speech doctrine in striking down Vermont's Prescription Confidentiality Law under a heightened level of scrutiny. The Prescription Confidentiality Law was Vermont's attempt to prevent pharmacies from sharing information about doctors’ prescribing habits with drug manufacturers without the consent of the doctor. The law aimed to protect doctors, as well as to promote public health, by regulating speech and conduct that is arguably commercial in nature. The Court has purported to subject regulation of commercial speech to only an intermediate level of scrutiny since Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizen's Consumer Council, Inc. established that as the proper standard. Thus, it was inconsistent for the Court to categorize the commercial speech regulation in Sorrell as “content-based” and thus subject to a stricter level of review. The invalidation of the Prescription Confidentiality Law, however, is only the most recent development in the Court's strict treatment of health-related regulations infringing on commercial speech. The Court has been moving toward a more stringent level of scrutiny since first applying the commercial speech doctrine in a public health context in Rubin v. Coors.

scholarly journals Banning front-of-package food labels: First Amendment constraints on public health policy

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1123-1126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy D Lytton
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Nutrition Policy ◽  
Health Claims ◽  
Processed Foods ◽  
Food Labels ◽  
Nutrition And Health ◽  
Food Packages ◽  
Nutrition And Health Claims

AbstractIn recent months, the FDA has begun a crackdown on misleading nutrition and health claims on the front of food packages by issuing warning letters to manufacturers and promising to develop stricter regulatory standards. Leading nutrition policy experts Marion Nestle and David Ludwig have called for an even tougher approach: a ban on all nutrition and health claims on the front of food packages. Nestle and Ludwig argue that most of these claims are scientifically unsound and misleading to consumers and that eliminating them would ‘aid educational efforts to encourage the public to eat whole or minimally processed foods and to read the ingredients list on processed foods’. Nestle and Ludwig are right to raise concerns about consumer protection and public health when it comes to front-of-package food labels, but an outright ban on front-of-package nutrition and health claims would violate the First Amendment. As nutrition policy experts develop efforts to regulate front-of-package nutrition and health claims, they should be mindful of First Amendment constraints on government regulation of commercial speech.

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