Is Public Health and the First Amendment At Odds with Each Other

An interesting article appears in the vol. 2 and 3. edition of the American Journal of Law and Medicine in 2013 titled “The First Amendment and Public Health, at Odds,” by Seth Mermin and Samantha Graff. The article talks about how the interpretation of freedom of speech in the First Amendment has, in recent years, been altered to benefit corporations. Usually when one thinks of the First Amendment they think of protecting individual’s rights to express their opinions and thoughts. The authors essentially state that with recent changes in the interpretation of the law now companies can push products without much regard to their effect on the health of their customers. The authors state “There has been nothing comparable to an uproar over the Supreme Court’s granting…in the infamous Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission. It is time – well … Read more