Friday, May 30, 2003 :::
GRAPES AND COCONUTS
Steven Tillery of St. Louis' Carr Korein Tillery, who won the Price judgment using the Sheller pattern, echoed Sheller's comments about the dissimilarity of the two cases: "It is obviously a totally different case, based on a completely different theory."
Edward L. Sweda, senior attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project, said "it's not just apples and oranges; comparing Engle and Price is like grapes and coconuts."
Sheller doesn't think that the reasoning in Engle, even if adopted by other courts, will necessarily prevent plaintiffs' lawyers from bringing class actions in tobacco cases that rely on detailed testimony about the medical condition of individual plaintiffs.
Tillery said that there are ways the attorneys in Engle might have made the case more manageable and thus perhaps more palatable to the appellate court.
Instead of leveling their sights at several tobacco companies, for instance, they could have focused on one at a time, as was done in Price and other light-cigarette cases. That would have made litigating reliance much simpler, Sheller suggested, since only one company's advertisements would have been at issue.
The Miami husband-and-wife team of Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, who represented the Engle class, did not return calls asking for comment.
::: posted by Creditwrench at 6:26 AM
Thursday, May 29, 2003 :::
Here is another damned lie by the Smoke-A-Nazis.
In an article at
some nutcase research group is touting their latest scare tactic. Look at this one~
Smoking speeds up memory loss in middle age
Last Updated: 2003-05-28 16:00:21 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Alison McCook
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cigarette smokers who continue the habit through middle age may see their memory suffer as a result, according to new study findings released Wednesday.
UK researchers found that, from their 40s to their 50s, smokers showed a faster decline in their scores on tests of word memory, relative to non-smokers.
Furthermore, people who smoked in their 40s did worse on tests that measure how fast they could pick out certain letters from a page than non-smokers of the same age, the authors write in the American Journal of Public Health.
The relationship between smoking and memory loss appeared strongest in people who smoked more than 20 cigarettes each day, and persisted even when the authors controlled for the influence of socioeconomic status, gender and a range of medical conditions.
Just why smoking may speed up age-related memory loss is not yet clear, study author Dr. Marcus Richards of University College London told Reuters Health.
He said that he and his colleagues suspected that smoking may accelerate memory loss by increasing the risk of high blood pressure, which can damage the brain. However, the relationship between smoking and brain functioning may be slightly more complicated, Richards said.
You can click on this link
I know for sure its a damned lie because I am 72 years old and I smoke about 2 cartons a week. In other words I am a heavy smoker. And while I do forget stuff just like anybody else, the simple reason that I am "forgetful" is that the human brain can only hold so much information and then it dumps what is unused or not considered useful after a while.
But the important stuff I do remember. The stuff that is important to me, that is. And lots of stuff that isn't all that
important any more still has bits and pieces stored in memory from almost any point in life and if something triggers that memory I can usually put it all back to gether
again.
Smoking has nothing to do with memory loss. What causes memory loss is sitting in front of a stupid boob tube watching all the silly antics instead of spending one's time learning and pursuing new and interesting activities whatever they may be.
Memory is just like some other bodily functions. Use it or lose it. If you retire to an arm chair and a boob tube then you will most likely suffer all kinds of memory loss and maybe even an early death. All due to smoking, of course.
::: posted by Creditwrench at 5:43 AM
