News tagged with 'Cigarettes and Tobacco'

Philip Morris lost a $10 billion verdict Friday in a class-action lawsuit filed over the company's use of the word "light" to promote cigarettes. The suit, brought on behalf of 1.1 million Illinois smokers who bought and used Marlboro Light and Cambridge Light products, accused Philip Morris of deceptively marketing "

A U.S. District Court judge in New York last week certified a nationwide, punitive damage class action lawsuit brought against the world's leading cigarette manufacturers. In his ruling, Judge Jack Weinstein granted class certification to anyone in the United States who has smoked the defendant companies' cigarettes a

A new study conducted by Swedish and French researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm reveals that nicotine alone may cause sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). In the past, scientists have warned expectant mothers to immediately stop smoking upon the onset of pregnancy due to its link to SIDS, but the Sw

According to a report in the August 20th issue of the International Journal of Cancer , females who smoke multiple cigarettes a day for several decades may place themselves at an increased risk of developing breast cancer. As part of a comprehensive study, researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New Y

A new report in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that tobacco companies pressured pharmaceutical makers throughout the 1980s and 1990s into reducing marketing campaigns for anti-smoking products such as nicotine gum and skin patches. Based on documents recorded during the 1998 n

Tobacco giants were breathing a sigh of relief yesterday after the California Supreme Court upheld a law that granted cigarette makers a 10-year period of immunity from personal injury lawsuits. In 1987, the California legislature determined that the dangers of smoking were common knowledge to consumers and passed a l

A new study conducted by scientists with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a division of the World Health Organization, reveals that tobacco products may be linked to several more types of cancer than already identified. The project analyzed over 3,000 tobacco smoke studies involving millions of people.

For the second time in two weeks a Miami jury has ruled against Big Tobacco, this time awarding $5.5 million to a former flight attendant who alleged years of secondhand smoke exposure led to her chronic sinusitis. Lynn French, 56, said she inhaled toxic secondhand smoke for the first 14 years of her 26-year career wh

A jury awarded $37.5 million Tuesday to a Florida smoker who alleged three of the nation's leading tobacco companies contributed to his terminal bladder and oral cancer. John Lukacs, a retired Miami lawyer and former World War II Navy pilot, smoked Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson and Liggett Group brand cigarettes f

A Superior Court judge fined tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds Co. $20 million Thursday for advertising cigarettes to teenagers in several popular magazines that have a substantial number of young readers. Judge Ronald Prager told Reynolds officials that the company had violated a 1998 settlement barring tobacco makers from

A new study conducted by the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program indicates that the nation's leading tobacco manufacturer, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co., is aggressively targeting children in its advertisements. According to the study, the company has nearly tripled its magazine advertising spending in the last five ye

A new report presented at yesterday's meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Baltimore reveals that a child's exposure to secondhand smoke may lead to substandard test scores. The study, conducted by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, examined over 4,000 children using tobacco data c

Public interest groups and anti-smoking organizations won a small battle yesterday in the war against the legitimacy of filtered cigarettes when tobacco company Star Scientific Inc. announced it would stop labeling its products as "light" or "ultralight". A spokesperson for the Chester, VA manufacturer told health off

An Oregon jury Friday ordered Philip Morris to pay $150 million to the family of a woman who died of lung cancer after smoking low-tar Merit cigarettes. Michele Schwarz died in 1999 at the age of 53. Plaintiff attorneys argued the tobacco company wrongly marketed its low-tar cigarettes as healthier than regular ones.

According to a new study conducted by two Canadian researchers, cigarettes described as "Light" or "Ultra-Light" may not reduce the health risks of smoking. Drs. Richard W. Pollay and T. Dewhirst from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, claim tobacco companies, concerned that smokers would quit after eviden