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Jump to full article: Concord (NH) Monitor, 2006-04-02
Author: CHARLES BEWARD, Candia
Intro: Elliott Taylor's chief contention is that a smoking ban will protect the health of the innocent public, yet he offers no proof whatsoever that secondhand smoke poses a health risk (Monitor letter, Mar. 28).
Eighty percent of the epidemiological studies over the past quarter century show only a statistically insignificant relationship between secondhand smoke and either lung cancer or heart disease. Please note that 49 of those studies had to do with massive exposure: nonsmokers living with smokers for decades.
I had to laugh at his mentioning OSHA:
"Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standards. . . . It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded."- Greg Watchman, acting assistant secretary of OSHA, to Leroy J. Pletten, PhD, July 8, 1997.
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