Court Opinion

ID: 6825675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 19:25:14.882332+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:04:20.644557
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice BURGER,
with whom Justice POWELL joins,
concurring.
Most medical journals are not comparable to magazines and newspapers published for profit. Their purpose is to assemble and disseminate to the profession relevant information bearing on patient care. The enormous expansion of medical knowledge makes it difficult for a general practitioner—or even a specialist—to keep fully current with the latest developments without such aids. In a sense these journals provide continuing education for physicians—a “correspondence course” not sponsored for profit but public health.
There is a public value in the widest possible circulation of such data, and advertizing surely tends to reduce the cost of publication and hence the cost to each subscriber, thereby enhancing the prospect of wider circulation. Plainly a regulation recognizing these realities would be appropriate. Such regulations, of course, are for the Executive Branch and the Congress, not the courts. I join the opinion because it reflects a permissible reading of the present Treasury Regulations.