What’s the Justice Department accuses the industry? [br] [originaltext] Closi

Closing arguments continue today in the federal trial against the tobacco industry. The Justice Department accuses the industry of conspiring to hide the health dangers of smoking.
   The arguments mark the end of what’s been a nine-month-long civil trial. The government bas tried to persuade a federal judge that cigarette companies engaged in a fifty-year pattern of conspiracy and fraud designed to downplay the risk of using their products. Government lawyers asked the judge to force the industry to change its marketing practices, and to fund a ten-billion-dollar anti-smoking program. The industry says those measures are unnecessary. Cigarette companies say they’ve already reformed the way they do business. One company lawyer conceded the industry in the past was, in his words "not lily-white". But he said there never was a conspiracy and there’s no proof the industry is misleading the public now.