Jury lets Philip Morris off the hook for CT screening of smokers
Cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris USA does not have to pay for annual low-dose lung cancer CT screening for healthy smokers of Marlboro cigarettes, a Massachusetts federal jury has decided on Wednesday.
The jury rejected the claims of the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit because they didn’t prove that the cigarettes were defectively designed, according to a report from the Connecticut Post.
Philip Morris cannot be held accountable for the cost of screening healthy individuals, the jury said, rejecting plaintiff's arguments that the company deliberately sold a defective product, according to the article.
Philip Morris' attorneys argued that there was no safer alternative to the product Philip Morris sold because consumers rejected the low-tar alternatives the company promoted heavily in the 1980s.
Annual low-dose CT lung cancer screening costs about $500 per scan.
The case was the third medical-monitoring case to be decided in favor of Philip Morris, the attorneys noted.
The judge indicated she will decide whether there was a violation of Massachusetts consumer protection laws, according to the report.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.