Case seeking cancer screenings for smokers heads to trial



BOSTON (AP) — A group of smokers from Massachusetts is seeking to force Philip Morris USA to pay for a monitoring program to detect early signs of lung cancer.

The lawsuit is slated to go to trial in federal court in Boston this week, a decade after it was filed.

The smokers are not seeking money. Instead, they want the cigarette maker to pay for sophisticated chest scans for longtime smokers of Marlboro cigarettes.

The lawsuit alleges that Philip Morris manufactured a defective cigarette knowing it could have made a safer product with fewer carcinogens.

Philip Morris denies that its cigarettes are defectively designed. The company also says the group covered by the lawsuit is too broad.


 

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