Last Gasp For Racketeering Case Against Big Tobacco

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The final courtroom hearing in U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) long-running racketeering case against major tobacco companies - including Philip Morris and British American Tobacco - is scheduled for this Thursday. "Despite the industry's dismal reputation, it is eager to avoid the stigma of a racketeering verdict — which would be the first such judicial finding against a major industry," the Los Angeles Times reports. When Bill Clinton gave the go-ahead for the DOJ case in 1999 BSMG WorldWide was hired by Philip Morris to hose down potentially adverse reporting. Across the Atlantic, the Independent reports that four top German public health experts were "funded for years by the German Association of Cigarette Manufacturers, mainly via innocuous-sounding medical foundations in an attempt by the industry to play down the dangers of smoking."