Climate Change, Environment, Science and the Law

When survivors voted on the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy plan, they were told it would pay eligible claims in full. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal and the plan is final, claimants are receiving roughly 4.7% of their allowed claims, and many are asking how this happened and what comes next.

From the third-party releases that shielded more than 300,000 churches, schools, and other chartering organizations, to the insurance companies fighting over interest on nearly $1.6 billion held in escrow, this episode follows the money. Host Gregg is joined by attorney Jason Joy and Curtis Garrison, BSA survivor, advocate, and founder of Speak Out to Stop Child Sexual Abuse, to break it all down.

Jason explains why the Supreme Court's Purdue Pharma ruling matters here, what's happening with the non-settling insurers in the Northern District of Texas, and why he's requesting access to the trust's books and records. Curtis shares his own experience as a claimant, the cost of running the Scouting Settlement Trust, and how survivors who are incarcerated or homeless are at risk of missing critical deadlines.

Join Gregg, Jason, and Curtis on Gregg Goldfarb Podcast as they discuss:

• Why survivors were told the plan was "paid in full" and how payouts landed at 4.7%

• How third-party releases let local churches, schools, and sponsoring organizations off the hook

• Why the Purdue Pharma decision didn't change the outcome in the Boy Scouts case

• The fight over escrow interest, the future claims holdback, and the non-settling insurance companies

• Concerns about the claims administrator, trust fees, and administrative costs

• What survivors can do now, from mixed claims to contacting their congressman and senator

Curtis Garrison is a survivor of Boy Scout sexual abuse and the founder of Speak Out to Stop Child Sexual Abuse (SOSCA), a national advocacy organization dedicated to eliminating the legal and cultural barriers that keep survivors from speaking out. He has testified before lawmakers, advocated across multiple states for statute of limitations reform and NDA bans, and continues to work alongside attorneys and fellow survivors to drive systemic accountability. Contact Curtis Garrison — SOSCA:

• Website: https://soscsa.org/
• Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisjgarrison/

Jason Joy is the founding attorney at Jason Joy & Associates, where he specializes in representing survivors of clergy, institutional, and sexual abuse across the United States. He has been at the forefront of major abuse litigation, including the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy, and is known for fighting aggressively on behalf of claimants who have been low-balled or overlooked by large settlement processes. Contact Jason Joy & Associates:

• Website: https://www.jasonjoylaw.com/

• Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-joy-595a3416/

Want more insights on justice, legal accountability, and the cases shaping our world? Subscribe to Gregg Goldfarb Podcast with Greg for new episodes every week.

Will climate change force you to leave your home? Columbia Law professor Michael Gerrard explains the five futures facing American cities as extreme heat, flooding, wildfires and soaring insurance costs reshape where we can live.

Your house might be worth less than you think, and harder to insure than you'd like. So do you fight to stay, or do you go? And who gets to decide?

Michael has spent decades at the intersection of climate and the law. In his new law review article, Five Urban Futures for a Hot Planet, he lays out the options every American city now faces: sprout new cities, grow existing ones, stay and adapt, shrink, or leave. None of them are easy, and every one of them hits your savings, your neighborhood and your community.

When Gregg asks whether America is ready for climate change to reshape the places we call home, Michael doesn't hesitate: "The short answer is hell no." Estimates of how many Americans will need to relocate by the end of the century range from 4 million to 100 million. At the low end, existing cities can absorb them. At the high end, we may need to build entirely new ones.

They dig into why extreme heat is the deadliest climate threat, why storm sewers built "for your grandfather's storms" can't keep up, what Hoboken got right after Hurricane Sandy, and why New Orleans rebuilt in the same flood zones after Katrina. Michael also explains the trap many homeowners are already in: if your house is at risk, you can't sell it for enough to buy somewhere safer. As he puts it: "A lot of people are just stuck."

If you own a home, live near the coast or a forest, or have ever heard someone say "the climate has always been changing," this is the episode to watch.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• The five urban futures (sprout, grow, stay, shrink and leave) and the trade-offs of each

• How many Americans could be displaced by climate change, and why the estimates vary so widely

• Why "the climate has always been changing" misses the point about the pace of change

• Why extreme heat is the most lethal impact of climate change, and how trees help cool cities

• What homeowners can do now: air conditioning, smoke filters, fire-resistant roofs and flood protection

• The flood insurance gap most homeowners don't know about until it's too late

• Why the experts' plan to stop rebuilding parts of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was rejected

• Seawalls, beach renourishment and tidal gates: what they solve and what they don't

• How Hoboken became a model for climate resilience after Hurricane Sandy

• Why stronger building codes work, and who fights hardest against them

• Why Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo and other Rust Belt cities could become climate havens

• Why building brand-new cities in the U.S. is so hard, and where they could go

Michael B. Gerrard is the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School and the founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He practiced environmental law at Arnold & Porter for many years, has written 14 books, and received the American Bar Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in Environment, Energy, and Resources Law and Policy in 2024. His upcoming book is Law for a Hot Planet: Legal Tools to Cope With a Dangerously Changing Climate.

Contact / Follow Michael Gerrard:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-gerrard-534262131/ Columbia Law School: https://law.columbia.edu/faculty/michael-gerrard Sabin Center for Climate Change Law: https://climate.law.columbia.edu/

Want more conversations that cut through the noise on science, climate, and the issues shaping our future? Subscribe to Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb for new episodes every week.

#ClimateChange #ClimateMigration #ClimateResilience

We send our soldiers to the front lines, but when they come home, does the healthcare system follow through? Jim Maguire and Joanne Frederick of Government Market Strategies explain why veterans and military families are struggling to get care, and how to fix it.

Most people don't realize there are two completely separate systems. The Military Health System (TRICARE) covers about 9.5 million active duty members, families, and retirees. The Veterans Health Administration covers about 9 million veterans. Both are stretched thin.

When military and VA facilities can't meet the demand, patients are sent out into the community, where they compete with everyone else for limited appointments. That's especially hard in rural areas, where many veterans live. On top of that, reimbursement rates are often lower than what private insurance and even Medicaid pay. Claims get delayed or never paid, so many doctors simply don't want to take these patients.

Then there's the paperwork. Joanne estimates that roughly 15,000 pages of law, regulations, and manuals govern these contracts, and "no one really knows what they say." Using AI, she broke those documents down and found that they contradict each other. That project took two weeks, compared with a year and a half for a team of 20 doing it by hand.

Jim and Joanne also share Patriot Health, their plan to modernize a TRICARE contract model that has barely changed since the 1990s. It would bring in more providers, more competition, and lower costs for taxpayers, while keeping the force ready for conflicts in the Middle East and beyond.

If you're a veteran, a service member, or love someone who is, this episode is for you.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

• The difference between the Military Health System (TRICARE) and the VA

• Why veterans and military families face long waits for care, especially in rural areas

• How low reimbursement rates and unpaid claims push doctors away

• Why an "adequate" provider network on paper doesn't mean you can get an appointment

• How a "game of telephone" from Congress to contract creates a bureaucratic mess

• How the Iran conflict and long deployments are pulling military doctors away from families at home

• What Patriot Health is and how it could modernize military healthcare

• How AI turned an 18-month, 20-person project into two weeks of work

• How the Oracle health record could follow service members from enlistment through veteran life

• What to do if you've been denied care: patient advocates, VSOs, and your congressional representative

• Why veterans juggling VA, Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance need a better system

Jim Maguire is co-founder of Government Market Strategies (GMS). He has spent his career in government contracting and healthcare finance and operations. He has served as CFO of National Government Services and the Indiana Medicaid health plan MDwise, and as chief operating officer of Cerner Government Services, where he led the electronic health record rollout across the Department of Defense and the VA.

Joanne Frederick is co-founder of GMS. She has more than 30 years of experience building and growing a consultancy that supports military health, VA care, Medicare, and Medicaid programs. Her first TRICARE contract dates back to 1992.

Contact / Follow Jim Maguire & Joanne Frederick:

GMS website: https://marketstrategiesonline.com/ Jim Maguire LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmaguireva/ Joanne Frederick LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannemfrederick/

Veteran Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• VA Patient Advocate Program: https://www.va.gov/health/patientadvocate/

• Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW): https://www.vfw.org

• Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org

• TRICARE: https://www.tricare.mil

• Find your congressional representative: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

Know a veteran or military family who needs to hear this? Share this episode, and subscribe to Cut to the Chase: Podcast with Gregg Goldfarb for new episodes every week.

Want more conversations that cut through the noise on science, climate, and the issues shaping our future? Subscribe to Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb for new episodes every week.

Is there still hope for climate change? Environmental journalist Fred Pearce, author of Despite It All, explains why climate change is solvable, from renewable energy and EVs to AI data centers and China's clean energy boom.

Have you given up on the planet? Before you do, hear from someone who has spent 40 years reporting from more than 80 countries, and who has watched the world solve problems that once looked impossible.

When Fred started out in the 1980s, the big environmental story was acid rain. Then came lead in petrol, the hole in the ozone layer, and warnings that a "population bomb" would starve billions. Today we barely talk about any of them, because we fixed them.

So can we do the same with climate change? Gregg plays devil's advocate and throws the hardest questions at him. AI data centers are driving up energy demand. China is still building coal plants. Corporations and governments are quietly walking back their net-zero pledges. And climate change has become deeply politicized.

Fred doesn't sugarcoat it: "You should be worried for sure." But he makes a compelling case for optimism. Solar and wind are now cheaper than coal. China has become the world's clean energy powerhouse. The conflict in Iran is pushing countries toward homegrown renewable power. And nature has an extraordinary ability to bounce back. As Fred puts it: "Hope drives ambition."

If climate news leaves you feeling anxious or hopeless, this is the episode to watch.

What you'll learn:

• How the world solved acid rain, the ozone hole, and leaded petrol, and what that teaches us about climate change

• Whether AI data centers will derail climate progress, and how renewable energy can power them

• How China went from climate villain to the global leader in solar power, batteries, and electric vehicles

• Why corporations may be easier to convince than governments, and why renewables now win on cost

• How the conflict in Iran and energy security are accelerating the shift to clean energy

• Fred's honest take on nuclear power, geothermal, and Trump's energy policy

• Geoengineering and carbon removal: should we be ready to pull CO2 out of the sky?

• What a Bolsonaro comeback could mean for Amazon deforestation

• Why letting forests regrow naturally often beats planting trees

• What Fred got wrong about caribou hunters in Alaska, and why the herd doubled

• How the "population bomb" was defused without forced policies

TIME STAMPS:

0:00 – Is There Still Hope for Climate Change? 1:10 – We Fixed Acid Rain and the Ozone Hole 3:59 – Will AI Data Centers Wreck It All? 6:16 – What About China? 10:34 – Why Companies Are Ditching Net Zero 12:13 – Iran, Oil, and Russia's EV Boom 15:11 – Is Trump Getting Anything Right? 17:56 – Can We Suck CO2 Out of the Sky? 20:40 – Bolsonaro and the Amazon 27:20 – What Fred Got Wrong 29:20 – How the Population Bomb Was Defused 33:22 – Nature's Surprise Comeback

Fred Pearce is a London-based environmental journalist who has covered climate change, water, biodiversity, and global development for more than 40 years, reporting from more than 80 countries. He is the author of 14 books, including The New Wild and Despite It All (Granta, 2026), his case for climate optimism.

Contact / Follow Fred Pearce:

Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/author/fred-pearce Climate Home News: https://www.climatechangenews.com/author/fred-pearce/ The Breakthrough Institute: https://thebreakthrough.org/people/fred-pearce Despite It All (Blackwell's): https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781803513638

Want more conversations that cut through the noise on science, climate, and the issues shaping our future? Subscribe to Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb for new episodes every week.

#ClimateChange #RenewableEnergy #ClimateHope

Miami is raising its seawalls. Cities across the country are doing the same. The question now in front of the Supreme Court is whether the oil companies can be made to help pay for it.

UC Berkeley law professor Daniel Farber joins Gregg to unpack Suncor Energy v. Boulder County. In this case, local governments are seeking compensation from oil companies for climate damage and for allegedly misleading the public about what their own scientists knew. The oil companies' defense is that climate change is a federal issue under the Clean Air Act, so state courts can't hear these cases.

Here's the catch. The Trump EPA has repealed the endangerment finding, the legal foundation that lets the federal government regulate greenhouse gases. Pull that out, Farber explains, and "the whole house of cards falls down." The move meant to help Big Oil may end up weakening its best legal defense.

The case at a glance:

• Boulder and Boulder County sued Suncor and ExxonMobil in 2018 over climate costs like wildfires, floods, and heat waves.

• The Colorado Supreme Court let the case proceed in 2025. The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on October 5, 2026.

• The ruling could decide the fate of dozens of similar lawsuits across the country.

What you'll learn:

• What the Suncor case is about, and why it's the poster child for a second wave of climate litigation

• The "tobacco playbook" allegations: what oil companies are accused of misrepresenting

• How preemption works, and why oil companies say states can't sue at all

• What the endangerment finding is, and why repealing it could backfire on the industry

• Why cities and states, not individuals, are bringing these cases so far

• Why the Supreme Court might sidestep the big questions entirely

• How attribution science ties emissions to specific companies

• Whether the Paris Accord is working without the U.S.

Timestamps:

0:00 – Cold open 0:13 – The feds step back from climate regulation 0:47 – Meet Professor Daniel Farber 1:24 – What the Suncor case is all about 3:18 – Why can't states sue Big Oil? The preemption argument 5:22 – The misrepresentation claims and the tobacco playbook 6:34 – The endangerment finding, explained 8:44 – How the endangerment finding connects to state lawsuits 12:18 – Rock and a hard place: who's actually suing 15:00 – Can the Supreme Court thread the needle? 17:01 – Proving it: Exxon vs. Chevron vs. everyone else 20:21 – Is the Paris Accord still alive? 22:08 – Wrap-up and a promise to return after the Suncor decision

Daniel Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law at UC Berkeley and faculty director of the Berkeley Center for Law, Energy & the Environment. He has written more than 20 books on climate law, disaster law, environmental regulation, cost-benefit analysis, and executive authority.

Contact / Follow Daniel Farber:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-farber-6801729
• Berkeley Law: https://www.law.berkeley.edu
• Berkeley Center for Law, Energy & the Environment: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/
• Legal Planet blog: https://legal-planet.org

Sources:

• Legal Planet: https://legal-planet.org/2026/09/08/legal-planet-guide-to-suncor-energy-v-county-commissioners-of-boulder-county/

• SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/suncor-energy-inc-v-county-commissioners-of-boulder-county/

• E&E News: https://www.eenews.net/articles/epa-climate-rollback-could-thwart-big-oils-next-supreme-court-fight/

• E&E News: https://www.eenews.net/articles/epa-endangerment-repeal-could-expose-industry-to-legal-blowback/

• The American Prospect: https://prospect.org/2026/03/04/environmental-protection-agency-climate-endangerment-finding-repeal-trump-zeldin-supreme-court/

• Smith Anderson: https://www.smithlaw.com/newsroom/publications/Supreme-Court-Takes-Up-Climate-Tort-Case-Amid-EPA-Endangerment-Rollback

• Beveridge & Diamond: https://www.bdlaw.com/publications/climate-change-and-state-authority-potential-broad-implications-of-the-supreme-courts-grant-of-certiorari-in-suncor-energy-inc-v-commissioners-of-boulder-county/

• The Regulatory Review: https://www.theregreview.org/2026/04/20/reiter-ending-epas-endangerment-finding-wont-end-climate-change-regulation/

• LegalClarity: https://legalclarity.org/epa-sued-over-endangerment-finding-repeal-last-week/

• Inside Climate News: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23082026/suncor-v-boulder-supreme-court-climate-case/

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suncor_Energy_(U.S.A.)_Inc._v._County_Commissioners_of_Boulder_County

Want more conversations that cut through the noise on science, climate, and the issues shaping our future? Subscribe to Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb for new episodes every week.

If you or a family member has a case involving Camp Lejeune, PFAS, NEC, or Depo-Provera, you've probably seen headlines about deadlines and settlements and wondered where your claim actually stands. In Part 2 of this conversation on Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb, host Gregg Goldfarb sits down again with Steven Smith, Vice President of Broughton Partners, to unpack four more mass tort campaigns that are all reaching critical moments.

Smith explains why Camp Lejeune finally has real momentum, now that a federal judge has given plaintiffs' leadership until the end of October to reach a deal with the DOJ or risk being replaced. He also clarifies why no new Camp Lejeune claims can be filed, since the window Congress opened has now closed. On PFAS, he walks through how firefighting foam (AFFF) seeps into soil and drinking water, why 131,000 cases were filed when only 60,000 to 70,000 were expected, and how an upcoming Daubert hearing on two additional injuries could shift negotiating leverage before a possible global resolution.

On NEC, Smith explains how two defendants agreed to pay just under $1 billion, why state court cases have succeeded where the federal MDL has not, and why the details of case values are still unknown. And on Depo-Provera, he breaks down the science linking the birth control shot to brain tumors called meningiomas, with more than a 5x increased risk, and shares his expectation of average case values between $150,000 and $200,000 for qualifying claims.

Throughout, Smith and Goldfarb stress that deadlines, qualifications, and venue all matter, and that claimants should talk to their own firm about where their specific case stands.

What You'll Learn

• Why a federal judge's October deadline could force a Camp Lejeune resolution

• Why new Camp Lejeune claims can no longer be filed

• How firefighting foam contaminates drinking water across the country

• Why 131,000 PFAS cases were filed, and how that number has been cleaned up

• What a Daubert hearing is, and how it could change PFAS negotiations

• How to find out if your water is contaminated with PFAS

• Why NEC cases in state court have outperformed the federal MDL

• What the science shows about Depo-Provera and brain tumors

• What Depo-Provera claimants might expect, and when

Time Stamps

0:00 - Intro

0:15 - Camp Lejune case updates

4:17 - PFAS Water Contamination Ligitagion

13:24 - NEC - Pre-Term Babies Settlement

14:23 - Depo-Provera Litigation and conclusion

Steven Smith is Vice President of Broughton Partners, a mass tort marketing and consulting firm, where he has spent nearly 20 years advising law firms and claimants across major litigations including Talc, Roundup, Hernia Mesh, Social Media, Camp Lejeune, PFAS, NEC, and Depo-Provera. Known industry-wide as "The Mass Tort Mentor," he works to help claimants get connected with qualified representation and to help law firms navigate complex, evolving litigation.

Contact / Follow Steven Smith:

Firm: https://www.broughtonpartners.com/

Phone: 954-224-1733

Email: [email protected]

Want more conversations that cut through the noise on science, climate, and the issues shaping our future? Subscribe to Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb for new episodes every week.

If you or a family member has a case in Talc, Roundup, Hernia Mesh, or the social media litigation, you've probably heard a settlement number in the news and wondered what it actually means for you. On this episode of Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb, host Gregg Goldfarb sits down with Steven Smith, Vice President of Broughton Partners, to unpack four major mass tort campaigns that are all reaching critical moments at once.

Smith explains why J&J's $5.5 billion Talc settlement is really a floor, not a ceiling — with total payouts from this first wave expected closer to $8 billion, and no cap on what the company pays over time. He breaks down why a recent Supreme Court preemption ruling gutted the "failure to warn" claims in the Roundup litigation, while "design defect" claims may survive, and why the proposed class action's roughly $50,000 average case value has some claimants better off staying out of it. On Hernia Mesh, he details the split between Bard (which resolved lower-value cases early while holding back its biggest claims for a separate, stricter fund) and Covidien, where a recent verdict topped $66 million. And on social media, he walks through how Meta's $16.68 billion settlement with 29 state attorneys general is actually a step toward compensating individual families, not the end of the road.

Throughout, Smith and Goldfarb stress that "qualified" is doing a lot of work in every one of these settlements — and that claimants should be talking to their own firm about where their specific case stands before assuming a headline number applies to them.

What You'll Learn

• Why J&J's $5.5B Talc settlement is a floor, not a final number

• What "qualified" actually means — and why it changes as a case matures

• How the Supreme Court's preemption ruling reshaped the Roundup litigation

• Why some Roundup claimants may be better off outside the class action

• How Bard and Covidien ended up handling hernia mesh cases so differently

• What the $66 million Covidien verdict signals for pending cases

• Why Meta's $17B settlement is with states, not the injured kids themselves

• How to tell if your case is being handled by the right firm

• What "opting out" of a settlement means, and when it makes sense

Time Stamps:

0:00 – Cold open: $17 billion Meta settlement 0:27 – Intro: Steven Smith joins to break down mass tort settlements 1:22 – Talc / Johnson & Johnson (baby powder settlement, $5.5B+) 12:02 – Roundup (Bayer, Supreme Court ruling, class action) 17:37 – Hernia Mesh (Bard, Covidien, $66M verdict) 22:38 – Social Media (Meta, TikTok, Snapchat — $17B settlement explained)

Steven Smith is Vice President of Broughton Partners, a mass tort marketing and consulting firm, where he has spent nearly 20 years advising law firms and claimants across major litigations including Talc, Roundup, Hernia Mesh, Social Media, Camp Lejeune, PFAS, NEC, and Depo-Provera. Known industry-wide as "The Mass Tort Mentor," he works to help claimants get connected with qualified representation and to help law firms navigate complex, evolving litigation.

Contact / Follow Stephen Smith:

Firm: https://www.broughtonpartners.com/

Phone: 954-224-1733

Email: [email protected]

Want more conversations that cut through the noise on science, climate, and the issues shaping our future? Subscribe to Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb for new episodes every week.

What does a cereal box actually tell you? A lot more than you'd think.

On this episode, Gregg Goldfarb is joined by Lisa Sutherland, who spent years running nutrition strategy inside Kellogg, and Marion Nestle, one of the country's most well-known food policy critics, to unpack their new book, Sugarcoated. The two co-authors met almost two decades ago when Nestle got rare access to Kellogg's archive: every piece of cereal packaging the company had ever created, dating back to 1919. What they found sitting in that library became the foundation for a book that traces American food policy, marketing tactics, and health claims through the lens of the cereal aisle.

The conversation digs into how sugar content in cereal has changed since Sutherland's time at Kellogg, why the toys that consumer advocates once got pulled from cereal boxes are quietly making a comeback, and how the FDA and watchdog groups have spent decades battling cereal makers over health claims that cross the line.

Nestle and Sutherland don't paint food companies as villains — they're businesses answering to shareholders every quarter — but they make clear that understanding that incentive is the key to understanding everything on the shelf. Gregg also gets both authors' take on whether today's political moment, with food additives and health claims under new scrutiny, is a real opportunity for change or just more noise.

Join Gregg Goldfarb, Marion Nestle and Lisa Sutherland on Climate Change Environment Science & the Law as they explore:

• Why cereal boxes are a surprisingly rich record of American food policy history
• How sugar content in cereal has actually changed since the 1990s — and how much
• What life was like inside Kellogg's nutrition division, from label claims to ad strategy
• Why the toys that were pulled from cereal boxes years ago are showing up again
• How the FDA and consumer advocacy groups have repeatedly challenged cereal health claims
• Why "healthier" products don't always win shelf space, even when companies want them to
• What it actually takes to write a book with a co-author — and find a literary agent
• Which cereals actually hold up as healthier choices, according to a nutrition PhD

TIME STAMPS

0:00 – The Open 0:17 – The Cereal Box as Sophisticated Advertising 1:40 – Why Sugarcoated, Why Now 2:39 – A Century of Cereal Boxes Reveal Food Policy History 5:53 – "They Want to Get Kids Hooked" — Toys Are Back 7:03 – Profit, Market Share, and the Cheerios Takeover 9:18 – Is This False Advertising? 11:57 – "That's the Issue" — The Real Incentive Behind Big Cereal 13:59 – The Michelle Obama White House Story 15:43 – What Readers Will Get From the Book 21:47 – The Healthiest Cereals, According to a Nutrition PhD 22:45 – Release Date & Sign-Off

Lisa Sutherland, PhD, is a public health–trained nutrition scientist and the former Vice President of Nutrition at Kellogg Company. She now works in academia, applying her food industry experience to public health education.

Marion Nestle is a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, the author of Food Politics, and a longtime critic of food industry marketing practices. She writes daily at foodpolitics.com.

Contact / Follow Marion

• Marion Nestle Blog: https://www.foodpolitics.com/
• Marion Nestle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marion-nestle-9515ba8/

Contact / Follow Lisa

Lisa Sutherland LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lasutherlandphd/

Get the book!

Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America's Favorite Breakfast Food: https://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Coated-Unboxing-Breakfast-California/dp/0520421272

To hear more mass tort updates and legal issues shaping our communities, subscribe to Climate Change Environment Science & the Law with Gregg Goldfarb.

Ten years. Three bankruptcies. Multiple trials. A lead plaintiffs' firm disqualified along the way. The Johnson & Johnson talc litigation has produced just about every issue a mass tort can produce, and for the tens of thousands of women waiting on it, the only question that ever mattered was whether it would actually resolve.

On this episode of Climate Change Environment Science & the Law, host Gregg Goldfarb sits down with Cameron Stevenson, shareholder at Levin Papantonio and one of the primary attorneys involved in the litigation, to walk through the settlement that finally came together. Stevenson explains what "uncapped" means in practice, why the deal is built for current claimants rather than future ones, and why he believes the dollar for dollar recovery for those claimants is substantially better than what the $8.9 billion bankruptcy proposal would have delivered, since that plan would have absorbed future claims, state AG claims, and Canadian class claims and paid out over roughly 25 years.

He also delivers the part of this episode that claimants most need to hear: having a filed case does not automatically mean qualifying. The settlement is built around epithelial ovarian cancer, and Stevenson explains why post-hysterectomy pathology is the document that determines eligibility, and why some cases filed early in the litigation may not make it through. From there, Gregg and Cameron lay out the process step by step: the registration window, the opt-in release, the proof phase, how a case gets plotted on the settlement grid, and the 95% participation threshold the deal has to clear. Stevenson also addresses future diagnoses, why ovarian cancer's long latency means new cases will keep surfacing for decades, and why anyone diagnosed down the road needs to be acutely aware of their own state's statute of limitations. The conversation closes with the reason this episode exists. Attorneys are inundated, calls are rushed, and clients are hanging up unsure of what they were just told. Gregg's call to action is simple: share this with someone who needs it, then take your questions back to your own lawyer.

Join Gregg and Cameron Stevenson on Climate Change Environment Science & the Law as they explore:

0:00 – "It Will Not Qualify" 0:13 – Did Talc Actually Settle? 0:58 – The Settlement Is Real, and It's Finalized 2:18 – Why a Smaller Number Beats the $8.9 Billion Bankruptcy Deal 4:05 – The Diagnoses Still Coming 30 Years From Now 5:22 – The One Document That Decides Your Claim 7:20 – Stop Doing the Math on What You'll Get 7:59 – Inside the Settlement Grid 10:45 – What You Need to Do This Week 11:39 – When the Money Actually Moves 14:47 – The Deadline That Can Still Cost You Everything

Cameron Stevenson is a shareholder at Levin Papantonio and one of the primary attorneys involved in the Johnson & Johnson talcum powder litigation, a mass tort spanning more than a decade, three bankruptcy attempts, and multiple trials. He returns to the show to break down the settlement for the claimants and families who have been waiting on it.

Contact / Follow Cameron Stevenson: Phone: (850) 435-7176 Email: [email protected] Firm: Levin Papantonio Website: https://levinlaw.com

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Larry Patterson went in for a routine hernia repair. He came out, eventually, with several inches of his bowel removed.

Timothy O'Brien, board-certified trial attorney and shareholder at Levin Papantonio, just won $88 million for Patterson and his wife Tammy against Covidien, a Medtronic company. It is the largest compensatory award in fifteen years of mesh litigation, and the first of roughly 2,500 cases to reach a jury. The mesh, Symbotex, sits right against your intestines behind a collagen barrier meant to last 30 days. Covidien's own internal testing showed it was gone in under seven. They knew in 2003.

O'Brien walks Gregg through the evidence that turned the trial, where sales staff swore to doctors the barrier lasted a month while R&D said otherwise in writing. He also maps the hernia mesh lawsuit landscape, from the Bard settlement covering 33,000 claimants to why Medtronic Covidien is the last major manufacturer still fighting, and what a bellwether verdict actually means for the thousands of people still waiting on their own cases

Join Gregg and Timothy O'Brien on Climate Change Environment Science & the Law as they explore:

• Why a generation of surgeons stopped doing tissue-to-tissue repair, and what that traded away

• How Symbotex's protective barrier was supposed to work, and how fast it actually disappeared

• The 2003 document that locked in the depositions and became the case's spine

• Why sales and R&D were telling two completely different stories about the same product

• What a bellwether trial is, and why the first one carries the most weight

• Where the Bard, Johnson & Johnson, and Medtronic Covidien litigations stand right now

• Why about 100 new Covidien cases are still being filed every month

• What Covidien's planned appeal means for people still waiting

• How to find out if you or someone you love has a case

0:00 – "They are lying": the sales pitch vs. the truth 0:48 – Meet attorney Timothy O'Brien 1:02 – The hernia mesh "safety feature" that failed 2:06 – Why hernia mesh exists in the first place 4:13 – The Patterson case: what happened to the plaintiff 5:41 – The depositions that exposed Covidien 7:46 – 2003: when they allegedly knew the truth 9:33 – The 3 major mesh manufacturers, explained 11:59 – What a "bellwether trial" means for your case 14:07 – Will Covidien settle or appeal? 17:40 – How to contact Timothy O'Brien about your case

Timothy O'Brien is a board-certified trial attorney and shareholder at Levin Papantonio, where he has served as lead or co-lead counsel in mass tort litigation against major hernia mesh manufacturers, including Bard, Johnson & Johnson, and Medtronic Covidien. He recently helped secure an $88 million verdict in the first bellwether trial of the Covidien hernia mesh multidistrict litigation.

Contact / Follow Timothy O'Brien:

Firm: Levin Papantonio

Website: https://levinlaw.com

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