Author: 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.

After FDA’s Menthol Announcement, PHAI’s Gottlieb and Daynard Consider Next Steps

In an op-ed published today in the Boston Globe, a day in which FDA announced it’s intention to issue regulations to ban menthol cigarettes, PHAI’s executive director and president consider what the next steps in tobacco prevention should be. Gottlieb and Daynard suggest that: The FDA should also remove menthol flavored e-cigarettes from the market.  […]

#UnitedOnGuns’ Sarah Peck and Northeastern’s James Alan Fox Consider Federal Policy to Help Mayors Deal with Mass Shootings

In an op-ed published today in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Sarah Peck, director of PHAI’s #UnitedOnGuns initiative along with Northeastern Professor James Alan Fox take a very practical approach to help mayors respond to mass shooting events, which have become all too common. While federal legislation mandating universal background checks and other measures remain trapped in political gridlock, […]

PHAI Takes Action Against Puff Bar for Violating Massachusetts’ Ban on Flavored e-Cigarettes

CONTACTS: Mark Gottlieb                                                             Meredith Lever (617) 216-0779                                                            (617) 373-8066 mark@3.228.1.30                                          meredith@3.228.1.30    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  Puff Bar Charged With Violating Massachusetts’ Ban on Flavored e-Cigarettes In direct violation of state law, Puff Bar sells flavored, disposable e-cigarettes that appeal to teens  BOSTON, MA (June 11, 2020) – Today, the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) at Northeastern […]

PHAI’s Sarah Peck pens op-ed urging a stop to active shooter drills in schools

Sarah Peck, Director of PHAI’s #UnitedOnGuns initiative, recently authored an opinion piece published by the South Florida Sun Sentinel entitled: Profiting from protecting kids is wrong. Halt active shooter drills in schools. In it, Ms. Peck raises the concern, shared by many, that active shooter drills in schools can traumatize children.  She notes that 42 […]

PHAI’s Sarah Peck pens op-ed supporting a federal “red flag” law

Sarah Peck, Director of PHAI’s #UnitedOnGuns initiative, recently authored an opinion piece published by The Hill entitled: A federal red flag law would save lives and give Trump a much needed win.  Ms. Peck notes that both red and blue states have enacted some version of these laws, also known as “extreme risk protection orders.” […]

PHAI’s Gottlieb Pens Commentary: “How The Opioid Settlement Could Truly Help The Addicted”

On July 9, 2019. the WBUR (Boston NPR affiliate) opinion blog, Cognoscenti, published an opinion piece penned by PHAI’s executive director seeking to leverage any forthcoming settlement of the the more than 2,000 lawsuits pending against opioid pain manufacturers, their distributors, and their retailers to create an independent foundation to help coordinate a national response […]

Lawsuit Demands Juul Fund Treatment for the MA Adolescents it Addicted

Today, the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) took the first step in launching a public health class action lawsuit in Massachusetts against Juul Labs, the makers of the most popular e-cigarette in the United States, for designing and marketing its product to appeal to and addict adolescents. This is the first such case brought against […]

U.S. Virgin Islands Juries Deliver $113 Million Verdicts Against R.J. Reynolds to families of Deceased Newport Smokers

The Public Health Advocacy Institute (“PHAI”) is pleased to announce that two tobacco lawsuits tried this month in St. Thomas, V.I., have concluded with verdicts totaling $113.3 million. The cases, Gerald v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Brown v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., were brought by the children of two deceased smokers who had been hooked on Newport cigarettes as minors.

PHAI Submits Comment Opposing Proposed School Food Nutrition Rollbacks

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) intends to issue a rule to weaken the school food nutritional requirements of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2012.  The rule would allow flavored milk with added sugar, waive requirement to provide whole grains, and delay reductions of sodium levels in school foods. PHAI submitted a comment to […]