By Associated Press, 05/08/98

AMBRIDGE - Calling the proposal ''grossly inefficient and impractical,'' a Middlesex Superior Court judge ruled yesterday that the tobacco industry cannot interview thousands of Medicaid recipients who allegedly are victims of smoking-related illnesses.

Judge Martha B. Sosman, who is overseeing the state's multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the industry, said the interviews could have taken five years.

''I do not see that the inordinate expense and delay that would be involved is at all warranted,'' Sosman said. ''I'm not surprised to hear that no state has allowed this to go forward ... and I don't intend to break ranks and be the first.''

Tobacco attorney Ken Parsigian had asked to take depositions from up to 2,000 Medicaid recipients, which he said would provide enough information for defense experts to generalize about as many as a million alleged victims.

The state - like dozens of others - is arguing that Massachusetts taxpayers have been forced to pay for billions of dollars of publicly funded health care for poor people who had smoking-related illnesses.

The state plans to prove its case against the industry through statistical and epidemiological studies, but the industry cried foul.

Parsigian said the industry wanted to put on a defense based ''on the real people they claim are injured.''

Anti-tobacco activists say the industry in other states has requested the depositions in an attempt to deflect attention from the industry's conduct by focusing on the conduct of individual smokers. At the most, they've been granted about 45 depositions, but that number wasn't even granted by Sosman.

This story ran on page D13 of the Boston Globe on 05/08/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.

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