It is a scientific fact that smoking causes lung cancer. It is a disappointing and regrettable ruling, but it will be recognized someday.
Jeong Ki-seok, director of the National Health Insurance Service (a pulmonologist), said this on the 15th after the National Health Insurance Service lost the second trial in its 53.3 billion won damages suit against tobacco companies. The point is that because people smoked and developed lung and laryngeal cancer and spent medical expenses, tobacco companies should be held responsible.
Even a single cigarette allows nicotine to enter the bloodstream and raise the level of dopamine, which transmits neural signals in the brain. As a result, smokers feel the urge to keep smoking. Jeong said, "That tobacco is addictive is all in the (medical) textbooks," adding, "There are people who have been diagnosed with addiction at hospitals."
Jeong said, "Smoking does not cause it 100% of the time, but you can get lung cancer, and it induces or worsens conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes," adding, "I did not expect the gap between science and the law to be this great." He added, "It is like a car causing a traffic accident in which people are injured and killed, and the driver flees," saying, "Tobacco companies are hit-and-run offenders."
◇ Appeals court says it is hard to recognize the plausibility of a link between smoking and lung cancer
According to legal sources, the Seoul High Court Civil Division 6-1 (presiding judge Park Hae-bin) on this day, as in the first trial, ruled against the plaintiff in the appellate case in which the National Health Insurance Service filed a claim for damages against KT&G, Philip Morris Korea, BAT Korea and others. The court said, "The plaintiff's insurance benefit expenditure is the performance of obligations under the Insurance Act," adding, "It is payment under the insurance contract, not due to the defendants' unlawful acts." The point is that the National Health Insurance Service only made payments for patients' benefits under the Insurance Act.
The issues in the lawsuit were harmfulness and addictiveness. The National Health Insurance Service argued that smoking is a direct cause of lung cancer, but the appeals court did not accept that. It held that to recognize the plausibility of a link between smoking and lung cancer, one must examine the individual's time and duration of smoking, the timing of lung cancer onset, health status, lifestyle habits, changes in disease status, family history and so on. Because there is a possibility that cancer occurred for reasons other than smoking, the tobacco companies do not have to be held responsible.
The National Health Insurance Service argued that tobacco companies induced addiction and should manufacture cigarettes with reduced nicotine content. It said that in the 1960s and 1970s, when patients began smoking, warning labels on cigarette packs were minimal compared with today and did not sufficiently inform people of the risks. The court said, "The amount of nicotine inhaled can vary by smoker, making it difficult to set a content level that does not cause dependence," adding, "Warnings about the harmfulness and addictiveness of tobacco have been issued for a long time."
◇ A 12-year tobacco lawsuit… "Smoking worsens public health"
In Apr. 2014, the National Health Insurance Service filed a damages suit against tobacco companies KT&G, Philip Morris Korea and BAT Korea. It sought the return of the amount the National Health Insurance Service spent on medical expenses from 2002 to 2012 to treat 3,465 patients who developed lung and laryngeal cancer.
The Seoul Central District Court Civil Division 22 (presiding judge Hong Ki-chan), which handled the first trial, ruled in favor of the tobacco companies in Nov. 2020. The National Health Insurance Service appealed, and the case moved to the second trial. The National Health Insurance Service submitted to the court research findings such as that smokers who have smoked for more than 30 years or a pack a day for more than 20 years have a 54 times higher risk of small cell lung cancer than nonsmokers, but it lost on this day.
Supreme Court precedent in Korea holds that when a person becomes ill from smoking, the responsibility lies with the smoker. By contrast, in 1998, government authorities in 50 states, including Mississippi, in the United States filed lawsuits against tobacco companies and received a $246 billion (362 trillion won) settlement. They held tobacco companies such as Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds responsible, saying the state governments should be paid the medical expenses they incurred in treating smokers' illnesses.