Brazil sues cigarette manufacturers

Brazil sues cigarette manufacturers for public health costs Lise Alves

Published:June 01, 2019DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31230-9

Brazil's Attorney General's Office (AGU) wants some of the country's largest cigarette manufacturers to repay the Brazilian Government for money spent by the public health system on treatments for problems caused by smoking. The AGU filed a civil action suit last week that asked manufacturers such as Souza Cruz and Philip Morris Brasil and their parent companies, British American Tobacco and Phillip Morris International, to pay back what the Union spent over the past 5 years on treatments for 26 diseases whose association with cigarette smoke has been scientifically supported.

“The profit of this trade is sent abroad, to these multinationals”, explained the regional coordinator of the Prosecutor's Office in Porto Alegre, Davi Bressler, during a press conference. “It is not fair that they have not paid the burden that they are leaving with Brazilian society.”/.../