Mark Gottlieb

Mark Gottlieb joined the staff of the Public Health Advocacy Institute in 1993 after graduating from Northeastern University School of Law. His efforts have focused on researching tobacco litigation as a public health strategy as director of the Tobacco Products Liability Project, reducing the harm caused by secondhand tobacco smoke through a variety of legal and policy approaches, fostering scholarship using tobacco industry documents, and, more recently, examining legal and policy approaches to address obesity. He is the Executive Director of the Institute and lives in Cambridge, MA with his wife and three children.

Historic $79 Million Cigarette Settlement Signifies Beginning of Wave of Tobacco Cases in Massachusetts

If you someone in your family was recently harmed by smoking, please see our cigarette lawsuit information page. Boston FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Mark Gottlieb – 617-373-2026 Massachusetts is now the most favorable state in the country to bring a cigarette smoking personal injury case.  A Massachusetts Tobacco Case Information Hotline has been established for victims of […]

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Verizon Mobile Ad Promotes Distracted Driving

By Matthew Puder, Legal Intern The commercial for Verizon’s NFL Mobile app begins with a noisy, crowded stadium and flashing camera lights. The quarterback calls out a play and makes offensive adjustments, and linebacker Clay Matthews counters by calling out his own defensive adjustment. The ball is hiked and handed off to the running back.

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Is McDonald’s Selling What It Advertises to Kids?

by Cara Wilking, J.D. Since 2008, national advertising for McDonald’s Happy Meals has not depicted soda as per a self-regulatory pledge made to the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI). In a recent pledge with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, McDonald’s stated that it will not display soda company

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US Supreme Court deals devastating blow to the cigarette industry and settlement value of nearly 8,000 pending Engle cases rises dramatically

For seven years, cigarette companies have repeatedly claimed that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Engle v. Liggett, which relieved about 8,000 Florida cases of the need to prove general liability or that cigarette smoking causes disease, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They repeatedly represented to industry analysts

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PHAI’s Daynard Signs on to Report: Why Casinos Matter

PHAI’s President and University Distinguished Professor of Law at Northeastern University, Richard A. Daynard, has joined more than 30 other scholars from a variety of disciplines around the country who have signed on to a report  issued by the non-profit and non-partisan Institute for American Values. The report, “Why Casinos Matter,” provides 31 evidence-based reasons

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PHAI’s Wilking interviewed in Huff Post for Michele Simon’s “Ask a Food Lawyer” feature

Michele Simon is a public health lawyer specializing in industry marketing and lobbying tactics. She is the author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, and president of Eat Drink Politics, an industry watchdog consulting business. Ms. Simon asks PHAI’s senior staff attorney, Cara Wilking, about

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McDonald’s Repeatedly Violates CARU Premium Guideline

In response to a recent study finding that nationally televised fast food television advertisements to children by McDonald’s and Burger King from 2009-2010 focused primarily on toys, movie tie-ins and branding, CARU Director Wayne Keeley stated that “[b]oth companies have always respected CARU’s recommendations by discontinuing the challenged ads, and pledged to take into account CARU’s

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New study finds McDonald’s and Burger King responsible for 99% of fast-food television ads for kids, suggests industry’s efforts to self-regulate its marketing practices are ineffective

Fast-food companies emphasize toy giveaways and movie tie-ins rather than food products when marketing to kids on television, which suggests that industry is not abiding by its self-regulatory pledges for child-directed marketing, according to a study co-authored by the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of

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Study of State Cheeseburger Bills Finds They Go Well Beyond “Tort Reform”

Cheeseburger Bills or Common Sense Consumption Acts (CCAs) were spearheaded by the National Restaurant Association as well as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and have been enacted in 26 states. Media coverage and legislative debates about CCAs were dominated by themes of personal responsibility and the need for tort reform to protect businesses from frivolous litigation.

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