The Checkup: No Graphic Labels for Cigarettes, Court Says

• The FDA’s law requiring graphic-warning labels on cigarette packaging is one step closer to winding up on the docket in the U.S. Supreme Court. On Friday, a U.S. appeals court in Washington, D.C., struck down the 2009 law, saying in a 2-1 decision that it violates corporate speech rights. “This case raises novel questions about the scope of the government’s authority to force the manufacturer of a product to go beyond making purely factual and accurate commercial disclosures and undermine its own economic interest — in this case, by making ‘every single pack of cigarettes in the country mini billboard’ for the government’s anti-smoking message,” wrote a judge in the majority decision, contradicting another appeals court’s ruling earlier this year. In the dissenting opinion, Judge Judith Rogers wrote that the warning labels were factual and necessary: “The government has an interest of paramount importance in effectively conveying information about the health risks of smoking to adolescent would-be smokers and other consumers.” Reuters has more.

• A new study of nearly 10,000 women found that those who are overweight during pregnancy are 65 percent more likely to give birth to heavier-than-normal-weight babies (we’re talking the 90th percentile here), giving rise to increased risks during delivery and other potential problems for the baby later on. Obese women were 163 percent (!!) more likely to have heavy babies. More on the Huffington Post.

• Groupon shoppers bought a different kind of deal earlier this month, making $3,500 in donations to help pay for a prosthetic leg—for a dog. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.