Category Archives: Conferences

PHAI to Host International Webinar on the Myth of the Responsible Gambling Model

It’s Not the Dough, it’s the Dopamine:
The Dangerous Myth of the Responsible Gambling Model

How the gambling industry misleads regulators and imperils the public’s health. . . and what we can do about it

An unprecedented Zoom event during Problem Gambling Awareness Month

March 15, 2023 from 1:00 – 3:00 PM EDT

Presenters:

Dick Daynard, University Distinguished Professor of Law at Northeastern University, has long been at the forefront of an international movement to establish the legal responsibility of the tobacco industry for tobacco-induced death, disease and disability. He is president of the law school’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, chairs its Tobacco Products Liability Project and helped initiate its Center for Public Health Litigation. Recently, he has worked with PHAI on issues involving obesity, gambling, opioids, gun control and e-cigarettes.

 
Jim Orford is Emeritus Professor of Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Birmingham. His books on addiction include Excessive Appetites: A Psychological View of Addictions and An Unsafe Bet?: The Dangerous Rise of Gambling and the Debate We Should Be Having, and, most recently, The Gambling Establishment: Challenging the Power of the Modern Gambling Industry and its Allies, published by Routledge in 2019. 

 Mark Petticrew is director of the National Institute of Health and Care’s Public Health Research Unit and Faculty of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he heads the Department of Public Health, Environments and Society. His research on commercial determinants of health extends from alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and fast food to gambling.

Matt Gaskell is a consultant psychologist and a clinical lead for addictions for the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and serves as clinical lead for the National Health Service Northern Gambling Service.


Liz Ritchie, along with her husband Charles, founded Gambling with Lives in 2018 to support bereaved families, raise awareness of the devastating effects of Gambling Disorder, and campaign for change.
Will Prochaska is the Strategy Director for the charity.

Harry Levant of Ethos Treatment, LLC is an Internationally Certified Gambling Counselor and policy advocate working with people and families struggling with gambling disorder; also a person with lived-experience in recovery from gambling addiction, and a doctoral student at Northeastern University who researches the impact of gambling on public health.

Mark Gottlieb is the executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston where he teaches public health advocacy. His research and advocacy have focused on tobacco litigation as a public health strategy, examining legal and policy approaches to food policy, and considering public health approaches to gambling and gun violence.

Register today

Northeastern University School of Law to Host Conference Examining Individual Choice and Public Health

nulsconf

Are individuals responsible for their own health?

Or does the health of individuals depend upon the health of their communities? And, can we have healthy communities without restricting individual choice? Conflicts between individual choice and collective action underlie many of the most contested and challenging debates relating to health and health care, from the very existence of Obamacare to government responses to the obesity and tobacco epidemics.

This conference will bring together legal and public health scholars and practitioners from across the country to discuss and chart the role of individual choice and public action in response to these —- and many more —-public health debates.

Keynote Speaker
Jon Hanson
Alfred Smart Professor of Law
Director, Project on Law and Mind Sciences
Harvard Law School

Eden Wells
Chief Medical Executive
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services

Conference Details and Registration Info

Friday, April 15, 2016
8:00 am – 4:30 pm

Raytheon Amphitheater
Egan Research Center
Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115

PHAI Presentation Highlights Similarities in Tactics of Tobacco and Gambling Industries

On October 30, 2014 at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI), in association with the Boston Alliance for Community Health (BACH), hosted a forum focusing on common tactics and strategies of two predatory industries: tobacco and casino gambling. It featured Northeastern University Distinguished Professor Richard Daynard, David Aronstein, Director of BACH, and PHAI’s Executive Director Mark Gottlieb. The featured speaker was PHAI’s Senior Staff Attorney Lissy Friedman, who presented powerful evidence demonstrating eerie similarities between the two industries.

The forum was especially timely in Massachusetts as voters there are about to weigh in on a first-in-the-nation ballot initiative to repeal the legalization of casinos in the state.

The proceedings were recorded and are presented here:

Accelerating Tobacco Endgame Strategies in the United States: September 19-20 in Boston

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On September 19-20, 2014, the Public Health Advocacy Institute, in conjunction with the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium and Northeastern University School of Law will host a conference for advocates, “50 Years After the Surgeon General’s Report: Accelerating Tobacco Endgame Strategies in the United States.” This meeting will provide a blueprint to identify laws, regulations and policies that can:

  • Reduce smoking rates to near-zero
  • Give consumers true freedom of choice by eliminating addiction from the equation
  • Consign non-smoker exposure to tobacco smoke to the dustbin of history
  • Finally complete the process that began with the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health

See the program agenda (pdf)

Speakers will include exceptional tobacco control researchers and policy leaders sharing both evidence-based best practices and bold new practices that comprise a true endgame for tobacco products. Confirmed speakers include:

                      Stan Glantz           hallettjpg Cynthia Hallett

                      Ken Warner          Frank Chaloupka

                     Ruth Malone          AJ Berrick

             David Sweanor        Meg Riordan

           Dick Daynard         Mark Gottlieb

                       Doug Blanke          Dorothy Hatsukami

 Jonathan P. Winickoff          Shane K. Bradbrook

and a special message from:
Rear Admiral  Boris D. Lushniak, M.D., M.P.H.

This meeting, the first of its kind in the United States, will highlight federal, state and local actions that will lead to an end to tobacco-caused addiction, death and disease in this country.

Re-imagining tobacco control as a means to truly end a public health problem that still kills more than 400,000 Americans each year is the next chapter in the movement that began 50 years ago when Surgeon General Luther Terry released the first Report on Smoking and Health.

The conference will be held September 19-20 (Fri-Sat) at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, MA.

The meeting will be held in Dockser Hall (directions). Please review parking and directions.

Our block of rooms at the Colonnade has sold out.  However, there are several hotels very close to our campus that may still have availability:

  • The Midtown Hotel
    220 Huntington Ave
    Boston, MA 02115
    617-262-1000
  • Boston Marriott Copley Place
    110 Huntington Ave
    Boston, MA 02116
    617-236-5800
  • Copley Square Hotel
    47 Huntington Ave
    Boston, MA 02116
    866-891-2174
  • The Eliot Hotel
    370 Commonwealth Ave
    Boston, MA 02215
    617-267-1607
  • Hampton Inn & Suites
    Boston Crosstown Center
    811 Massachusetts Ave
    Boston, MA 02118
    617-445-6400 or 800-426-7866
  • Hilton Back Bay
    40 Dalton St
    Boston, MA 02115
    617-236-1100
  • Inn at Longwood
    342 Longwood Ave
    Boston, MA 02115
    617-731-4700
  • The Lenox Hotel
    710 Boylston St
    Boston, MA 02116-2699
    800-899-0564
  • Sheraton Boston
    39 Dalton Street
    Boston, MA 02116
    617-263-2000  or 800-325-3535

50 Years after the Surgeon General’s Report (#SGR50): Conference to Show How to End Tobacco-caused Addiction, Death, and Disease

Contact: Mark Gottlieb 617-373-20026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Boston –   The Surgeon General’s Report on Tobacco and Health released today demonstrates how far we have come in addressing the loss of health and loss of life caused by the use of the tobacco industry’s products.  But after a half century, we still have tens of millions of Americans addicted to tobacco products that will cause the premature death of nearly half of them.

After 50 years, this has to stop. 50th-anniversary-surgeon-general

The time has come to aggressively deploy policies that will bring an end to the cycle of addiction, disease and death.  In the Report, such policies are referred to as “endgame strategies.”

On September 19-20, 2014, the Public Health Advocacy Institute, in conjunction with the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium and Northeastern University School of Law will host a conference for advocates, health leaders and policymakers to do just that.

“50 Years After the Surgeon General’s Report: Accelerating Tobacco Endgame Strategies in the United States” will provide a blueprint to show what laws, regulations and policies can:

  • Reduce smoking rates to near-zero
  • Give consumers true freedom of choice by eliminating addiction from the equation
  • Consign non-smoker exposure to tobacco smoke to the dustbin of history
  • Finally complete the process that began with the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health

Speakers will include exceptional tobacco control researchers and policy leaders sharing both evidence-based best practices and bold new practices that comprise a true endgame for tobacco products.

Northeastern University Distinguished Professor of Law, Richard Daynard, a contributing editor to the Report who also serves as president of the Public Health Advocacy Institute said of the conference: “We have the legal and moral authority to make today’s generation of teenagers the first truly tobacco-free generation.  There is no reason for them to ever be addicted to tobacco products much less struggle with cessation repeatedly, as so many do. “

This meeting, the first of its kind in the United States, will highlight federal, state and local actions that will lead to an end to tobacco-caused addiction, death and disease in this country.

Re-imagining tobacco control as a means to truly end a public health problem that still kills more than 400,000 Americans each year is the next chapter in the movement that began 50 years ago when Surgeon General Luther Terry released the first Report on Smoking and Health.

The conference will be held September 19-20 (Fri-Sat) at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, MA.  Details will be available soon at https://phaionline.org. If you would like to be notified when more information is available, please send an e-mail to moreinfo@phaionline.org.

Future of Obesity Litigation panel featuring PHAI’s Gottlieb and CSPI’s Gardner airs and is available online

On January 21, 2011, Northeastern University Law Journal sponsored its third annual symposium.  This year, it was entitled “From Seed to Stomach,” and addressed legal and regulatory aspects of obesity and food safety.  The symposium was recorded for broadcast by CSPAN, which aired the material from February 25-28, 2011.

PHAI’s Executive Director, Mark Gottlieb, along with Stephen Gardner (Director of Litigation for the Center for Science in the Public Interest) appeared on a panel moderated by Stuart Rossman (Director of Litigation for the National Consumer Law Center) focused on the future of obesity litigaiton.  The 80 minute panel is archived on CSPAN’s website.  Topics addressed included the “cheeseburger bills,” the role of and use of arguments around choice and individual responsibility, consumer protection law, and the litigation against McDonald’s use of toy giveaways to sell Happy Meals.

Research upon which Mr. Gottlieb’s presentation was based was supported in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research Program (#66968) and by the National Institutes of Health (grant RO1 CA 87571).

PHAI’s Gottlieb discusses litigation as an approach to reduce childhood obesity at Institute of Medicine Workshop

On October 21, 2010, the Institute of Medicine’s Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention hosted a one-day workshop to examine “Legal Strategies in Childhood Obesity Prevention.”

Mark Gottlieb, Executive Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law, presented on a panel moderated by UC Berkeley law professor Stephen Sugarman entitled “Using Litigation to Make Change.”  Gottlieb’s presentation focused on the underutilized legal tool of state consumer protection laws to stop unfair and deceptive practices that seek to sell junk foods and beverages to kids.

Michael Jacobson from the Center for Science in the Public Interest then discussed the litigation and litigation threats that his organization has been using for policy change.

The final panelist was Joseph Price, an attorney with Faegre and Benson in Minneapolis that defends the food industry.  His presentation was critical of the use of litigation to fight childhood obesity and took time to focus on PHAI’s President, Dick Daynard, as well as those who seek to fight obesity who, themselves, are overweight or obese.

All of the proceedings are available via the archived webcast and the litigation panel can be seen here.

PHAI Researches Unfair Food Marketing to Kids (and those who purchase for kids)

Staff Attorney Cara Wilking Presents Poster

-- Staff Attorney, Cara Wilking, Presents Poster

On December 2, 2009, Mark Gottlieb and Cara Wilking presented a poster to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research program grantees in Tucson, Arizona.

PHAI is exploring how state consumer protection laws can be used to address unfair and deceptive food and beverage marketing practices directed toward children or those who purchase food and beverages for children.  Such state laws may permit private citizens, attorneys general or prosecutors to bring actions consumer fraud.

Recently, Connecticut state attorney general Richard Blumenthal launched an investigation into the Smart Choices labeling program. The eight large food companies that participated in the labeling program (ConAgra Foods, General Mills, Inc., Kellogg Company, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, Inc., Riviana Foods, Sun-Maid and Unilever) have agreed to remove the program’s logo from their products, at least during the investigation.

PHAI’s findings will be available by the Fall of 2010.

PHAI Sends Obama Transition Team Obesity Policy Recommendations

NEW FEDERAL APPROACHES TO OBESITY EPIDEMIC NEEDED:

Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law Provides Obama Transition Team with Legal and Policy Recommendations

BOSTON (Nov. 24– President-elect Barak Obama’s Health and Human Services Transition Team today was presented with a series of nearly 50 legal and policy recommendations designed to combat the nation’s obesity epidemic.

The document, developed by the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) at Northeastern University’s School of Law, was sent to the Transition Team by Richard Daynard, a professor at the law school and president of PHAI.

Download PHAI Obesity Policy Recommendations to Obama Transition Team

“Public health, unlike some other national assets, cannot be ‘rescued’or ‘bailed out,'” Dayard wrote in a cover letter.  “A sophisticated and aggressive federal approach to obesity is desperately needed.

“Such an approach could save countless lives and reduce the devastating consequences of this epidemic while meaningfully connecting with healthcare, agriculture and energy policies,” said Mark Gottlieb, Executive Director of the Institute.

“A failure of federal obesity policy would have untenable public health andeconomic consequences.”

The report from PHAI, a non-profit law and policy research organization, was based on recommendations developed by a group of leading national and international experts at a conference at Northeastern on stopping the obesity epidemic earlier this fall.

The conference, co-sponsored by Public Health Law & Policy (PHLP) of Oakland, CA, brought together legal scholars, health policy advocates, and government officials.

The recommendations (www.phaionline.org) include such areas as the economic and social aspects of dietary behavior, ensuring equal access to healthy food and physical activities, food marketing regulations, and menu labeling laws.

Download PHAI Obesity Policy Recommendations to Obama Transition Team (pdf)