OTHERWISE: Tobacco Research Center replies to ALI on industry influence

OTHERWISE: Tobacco Research Center replies to ALI on industry influence:
The Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education hassharply criticized the ALI's response to the Center's recent study.  The Center revealed that fifty years ago tobacco industry lawyers secretly - and apparently successfully - lobbied American Law Institute Reporter William Prosser.  His draft was modified to exempt "good tobacco" from the new strict liability rule in the ALI's landmark Section 402A the scripture of contemporary product liability law.  The ALI responded with a cursory "we tell our members to leave their clients at the door".  The Center responds:

"The ALI’s refusal to engage the issues we document is the most troubling aspect of their response. If  the ALI’s goal is to create credible, independent assessments of law, it  must implement the same conflict of interest policies that have become routine at other comparable organizations. The ALI responders’ out-of-hand dismissal of the unrefuted documentary evidence we present and the associated recommendations to correct serious flaws in  the ALI’s conflict of interest policies belie their professed commitment to “consider legitimate criticism expressed in careful and responsible scholarship."

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