The Ironi -- Insurance Companies have investment in the cigarette companies

Company of life and health care insurance leading the United States, Canada, and UK, have billions of dollars of investment in the U.S. cigarette company, said a study published in a scientific medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, on Wednesday (3 / 6).

Wesley Boyd, main author of that topic, to find at least 4.4 billion U.S. dollar funds of insurance companies that invested in companies related to the product of cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco (chewing).

"Although this prompted the insurance industry out of business by the tobacco and other doctors, insurance continue to put their profits above people's health," said Boyd, a member of the teaching staff at Harvard Medical School.

"It was clear, their main priority is to make money, not keep people's health," he wrote.

Tobacco is considered as the main cause of lung cancer and main risk factors for heart attack, stroke, lung disease, and cancer. According to the World Health Organization, tobacco is one of the factors it in 5.4 million deaths per year.

Researchers, the first states, life insurance companies and health care have a large investment in the company's cigarettes in 1995 in any posts in a British medical journal, Lancet. "Although investing in a cigarette company, while selling life insurance or health may appear defeated itself, but insurance companies have been considering the ways to take advantage of them," Boyd wrote.

"Insurance does not include protection for smokers or, more general, they are charged higher premiums. Insurance hit-and loss-smoker two more times."

Based on the study, the U.S. insurance company Prudential Financial Inc. has 264.3 million U.S. dollars in investment between the three U.S. cigarette companies, including Reynolds America and Philip Morris.

Canadian insurance company, Sun Life Financial Inc., which sells life insurance policies, disability insurance (disability) and health insurance have a stock portfolio with a value of more than one billion U.S. dollars in the two cigarette companies, including 890 million U.S. dollars in Philip Morris.

Prudential Plc, which sells health insurance policy and disability insurance, has a 1.38 billion U.S. dollars in the two cigarette companies, including British American Tobacco (BAT).

Study also breaks down the large investment in the company's cigarettes to U.S. insurance company, Northwestern Mutual, and Massachusetts Mutual Life, and Scottish companies, Standard Life Plc.