Overseas, tobacco litigation continues to grow as plaintiffs in other countries seek to replicate some of the recent courtroom successes in the United States. Also looming overseas is a lawsuit brought by the European Union to recover tens of billions of dollars of lost tax revenue from tobacco companies through their alleged complicity in cigarette smuggling operations. Health Impacts and Costs of Tobacco Use Medical literature in the 1950s began to define some of the medical consequences of with tobacco use, such as lung cancer and heart disease. Since then, research has refined and added to our understanding of smoking risks. Cancers from smoking include lung, mouth, larynx, throat, bladder, pancreas, stomach and kidney.
Smoking also causes emphysema, bronchitis and diseases of the arteries.
Moreover, smoking increases the effects of other diseases, such as stroke and osteoporosis, and is associated with a particular form of diabetes as well as other diseases. Smoking while pregnant is particularly dangerous to the developing fetus, resulting in lower birth weight and intrauterine growth retardation. The demographics behind these changes show a shift of smoking from men in industrialized countries to men in developing countries and women in all nations. Many of these new smokers are poor. The World Bank estimates that in industrialized countries, healthcare costs related to smoking accounted for between 6 and 15 percent of total annual health care costs.