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| | HEALTH TALK - Dr. Bob Martin |
 | | In a much-anticipated appearance in the high-stakes Engle class-action case, CEO Michael Szymanczyk of Philip Morris USA, said his unit, the domestic tobacco arm of the global packaged goods giant Philip Morris Cos. |
 | | Szymanczyk said Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro, the world's best-selling cigarette, and other tobacco groups were besieged in the mid-1990s by state government lawsuits, calls for get-tough laws in Congress, and scores of suits by sick smokers and nonsmokers claiming injury from secondhand smoke. |
 | | Szymanczyk, in an apparent bid to temper punitive damages, testified Philip Morris USA was already committed to pay out roughly $93 billion under the 1997 state-government pacts through 2021, or more than twice its profits between 1971 and 1996. |
| www.doctorbob.com /2k_06_13news44.htm (717 words) |
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