P.M. BRIEFING : Tobacco Pitch Abroad Draws Fire

PERTH, Australia — Major American tobacco companies are manipulating trade laws and pressuring U.S. trade agencies in developing countries to ensure that markets for their products remain open, a top U.S. health official said today.

“They play our free trade laws and export policies like a Stradivarius violin, pressuring our trade promotion agencies to keep open--even force open in some cases--other nations’ markets for their products,” said James Mason, assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I’ve been appalled over the cynical marketing techniques of the tobacco companies,” Mason said at the closing session of the Seventh World Conference on Tobacco and Health, organized by the U.N. World Health Organization and anti-smoking groups.