OTHER NEWS - May 25, 1995

Tobacco Companies Lose Court Round: Philip Morris Cos. and RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. failed to persuade a federal judge to conduct a broad review of whether secondhand cigarette smoke should be considered a known cause of cancer. U.S. District Judge William Osteen in Winston-Salem, N.C., ruled that the big tobacco processors had not shown any bad faith on the part of the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency in 1993 declared environmental smoke a Group A carcinogen, a member of the class with the highest degree of certainty of causing cancer. The decision means Osteen does not plan to review all of the EPA’s documentary evidence, just its findings. Osteen also rejected an EPA request that he throw out the cigarette companies’ 2-year-old case because they have not suffered damages. He ruled that they have been hurt economically.