According to their staff reporter in Sao Paulo, the Brazilian government says it is planning to bring a suit against US tobacco companies "on their own turf" with the aim of recovering billions of dollars in costs for treating sick smokers.
It is in talks with US law firms and could seek as much as $33 billion in compensation for the public-health costs of smoking-related disease. The Health Minister, Jose Serra, is currently travelling in New York and Washington DC, but could not be reached for comment.
The news item compares the size of the prospective claim to the $206 billion settlement last month in the US.
Also on Thursday the government of Nicaragua filed suit in Puerto Rico against 9 tobacco companies seeking restitution of its smoking-related health costs. Guatemala filed a similar suit in Washington DC in May.
A spokesperson for the US tobacco industry conceded that the news about Brazil may have pressured tobacco stocks. She "like most analysts" [tried to spin] the news by suggesting that other countries were seeking to "cash in" [what have the companies been doing as conscientious capitalists all these years?!] but dismissed the strength of these possible actions. "Why not use their own legal system" she said. Other analysts [paymasters not specified] also dismissed the news: "it wasn't clear such cases could even be won, but they were certain that it would take years to find out."
So this small news item at the bottom of page 5 already shows evidence of spin doctors spinning defensively. It does no credit to the WSJ that they just regurgitate it.
Without denying class-conditioned psycho-social issues of risk taking, bonding and competing, I welcome the international dimension that has been given to this debate. It was when a quaker history teacher first taught us about Britain's opium wars in defence of free trade to China, that I started to realise there were problems with British compacency about our historical mission to bring decency and civilisation to the world.
Chris Burford
London