Maccabi health fund sues Dubek tobacco for NIS 1.75b.

Jerusalem Post
Tuesday, June 16, 1998 22 Sivan 5758
By Judy Siegel
Posted with Permission, Jerusalem Post

TEL AVIV (June 16) - Kupat Holim Maccabi yesterday filed a NIS 1.75 billion suit against the Dubek tobacco company to cover its costs in treating members' smoking-related illnesses.

The insurer is demanding NIS 250 million for its expenses for each year since 1991, the last year before the statute of limitations.

The suit, filed in the Tel Aviv District Court, is separate from a class-action suit filed last fall on behalf of 15 former smokers, or families of deceased smokers. They claimed they were not aware of nicotine being "added to make cigarettes more addictive and the health dangers posed by smoking, which were not mentioned for decades in Dubek's advertising."

Health Minister Yehoshua Matza "congratulated" Maccabi on the suit, according to a ministry statement.

Ran Rahav, spokesman for the government-recognized monopoly that sells most of the cigarettes smoked by Israelis said Dubek "had not yet received" the documents. "When we receive them, we will comment," he said.

Dubek has a battery of the country's leading lawyers from the S. Hurwitz law office working on the case.

Kupat Holim Clalit, which has three times as many members - many of them chronically ill and elderly - is now seriously considering the possibility of joining the suit. Kupat Holim Leumit's spokesman said that health fund has decided "definitely not" to take part in the legal action, but did not offer any reasons. Kupat Holim Meuhedet declined to comment.

"Whoever sells products that cause serious harm to health must bear the consequences," Prof. Eliezer Kaplinsky, chief of cardiology at Sheba Hospital, said on Army Radio yesterday. Kaplinsky will be a witness for Maccabi in court.

Lawyer Gidi Frishtik and Alon Gellert, who are representing the 15 families as well as Maccabi, said the health fund's suit could take years before a decision is reached.

Maccabi argues that it is "unjustified" for Dubek to enjoy profitable sales of cigarettes while the health fund has to pay for the treatment of patients suffering from lung cancer, heart disease, strokes and other disorders.

Maccabi maintains that "Dubek manufactured and marketed a dangerous product knowing that its use would cause them harm."

Although the smoking rate has decreased in recent years, 28% of the population over 18 light up, and 6,000 people die each year from smoking or inhaling passive smoke, according to Health Ministry statistics.

Over a year ago, Deputy Health Minister Shlomo Benizri asked the State Attorney's Office to look into the possibility of suing Dubek and US tobacco companies for compensation for the health costs of treating smokers. This, in accordance with the model of state suits against tobacco manufacturers in the US.

However, the idea has become bogged down in the Justice Ministry, whose spokeswoman, Etti Eshed, said it is "still being examined."

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