The tobacco lobby still prospers even as the Government spends money to control tobacco-related diseases.

If used in conjunction with cigarettes, risk for tobacco-related diseases will increase drastically.

Consequently, about 500,000 of these individuals well die prematurely from tobacco-related disease.

The suit seeks damages from cigarette companies for money spent in public health programs to deal with tobacco-related diseases.

As part of the settlement, the industry agreed to spend $300 million to study tobacco-related disease.

"It's about whether we're going to allow the death march of 418,000 Americans a year who die early from tobacco-related disease and do nothing."

With current smoking rates, the Vietnamese can expect about 10 percent of the population to die early from tobacco-related diseases.

They also agreed to finance a program to reduce youth smoking and tobacco-related disease with $25 million a year for 10 years.

Worldwide, almost 5 million people die every year from tobacco-related diseases.

More than 600 000 people die of tobacco-related diseases.