A Federal jury last week ordered two of the nation's largest tobacco companies to pay a Kansas City man $200,000 for injuries caused by forty-three years of smoking. David Burton, who smoked from 1950 to 1993, sued R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. in 1994, blaming the companies for his development of peripheral vascular disease, a circulatory disorder that affects blood vessels in one's extremities. Doctors amputated both of Burton's legs in 1993.

A spokesperson for R.J. Reynolds announced that both companies would appeal the decision, claiming there is "no obligation to warn about risks that are not yet known." The disease was not linked to smoking until the mid-1970s.