http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/org/epa.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pacific_Legal_Foundation http://tobacco.org/news/298875.html The Pacific Legal Foundation is a Sacramento, California-based legal organization that was established March 5, 1973 [1] to support pro-business causes. In recent years, it has taken a lead in pursuing anti-affirmative action policies. It is the key right-wing public interest litigation firm in a network of similar organizations funded initially by Scaife Foundations money across the USA to support capitalism and oppose environmental and health activism and government regulation. The organization has been [2] partially funded by a range of corporations and conservative foundations. . . . PLF is listed as a "key third party ally" in a September 14, 1999 Philip Morris document.[4] In 1989, Philip Morris began funding the organization through its Mission Viejo (gated-community land-development company) subsidiary, mainly because the organisation was active in the property rights area and had won cases limiting the States' ability to expropriate or regulate private property. The Mission Viejo subsidiary was interested in fighting a no-growth initiative which had been blocking some of their development projects. At this stage Philip Morris only gave an annual grant of $5,000 each year, just to keep the organisation on side and available, but it may have also funded specific legal projects. By 1991 the PLF had a major budget crisis. It was in deficit to the tune of about $1 million, which was about a quarter of its $4 million annual requirements. Not long after, Roy Marden, the Philip Morris executive in charge of maintaining relations with the right-wing think tanks and advocacy institutes, joined the PLF board. Overnight the funding increased substantially to $10,000, and then $22,000 by 1993. Philip Morris also began to utilize the PLF to undertake hidden media and political activities on its behalf. For instance, it enlisted the organization (together with think-tanks like the Reason Foundation, Hoover Institute, Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute) to write op-ed pieces that were planted in newspapers attacking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its determination that Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) was a carcinogen and its attempt to regulate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). (See page 4 of this planning document.[5]) At this time Philip Morris was also heavily funded two of PLF's unacknowledged offspring, the National Legal Center for the Public Interest and the Atlantic Legal Foundation. The Washington Legal Foundation was another of a similar kind favoured and funded ($200,000) by Philip Morris, but it was independent of the Scaife-funded, PLF-based network. [6] The PLF also intervened successful in Keller v. California State Bar, where it established a legal precedent that California lawyers could challenge the use of their dues to the state bar for political purposes. This was an successful attempt to block collective actions by the more liberal Californian lawyers who were involving themselves in such policy areas as class-actions and product liability. . . . In 1997-1998 the PLF joined forces with the $10 million funded (by Philip Morris) National Smokers Alliance, in a fierce and vindictive legal attack on Professor Stanton Arnold Glantz, a leader of California's main anti-smoking organization, Americans for Nonsmokers Rights[7] and attempted to brand him in the public mind as having something to hide ... a destroyer of legal document (a ruse the tobacco industry used itself on a massive scale). Glantz had received documents from the early tobacco industry whistleblowers, and he had established the first public-access Internet web site revealing how the industry operated. SourceWatch Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT http://www.ewg.org/reports/decaconflict http://tobacco.org/news/298025.html At the request of a chemical industry lobbyist, the Environmental Protection Agency removed the chair of an expert peer review panel charged with setting safe exposure levels for a toxic fire retardant that contaminates human blood and breast milk, according to documents obtained by Environmental Working Group (EWG). After doing the industry’s bidding, EPA then retroactively stripped all of the chair’s comments from the panel’s published report and republished the altered document. . . . Chemical Industry Used Allies inside the Agency to Bump Panel Chair The chemical industry’s trade association, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), submitted their demand for Dr. Rice’s removal to Dr. George Gray of EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ACC 2007). Before joining EPA Dr. Gray headed up an organization funded by the ACC called the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, well-known for their studies and advocacy to dismiss concerns about chemical safety. ACC acted on behalf of their Brominated Flame Retardant Industry Panel (BFRIP) in making their demands to EPA. Recent media reports reveal that other efforts by the Bromine Industry to keep Deca on the market have included hiring a lobbyist who also represented the tobacco industry and the National Association of State Fire Marshalls in advocating for increased use of chemical fire retardants in place of fire-safe cigarettes and other commonsense methods to reduce fire risk (Shin 2008). . . . * Other tactics of the bromine manufacturers to protect the use of their toxic products have recently come under scrutiny. On January 26th, 2008 the Washington Post published an exposé linking tobacco companies' efforts to fight fire-safe cigarettes with the same bromine-producing chemicals who had converging interests, as both benefited from an increased reliance on chemical fire retardants to combat cigarette ignitions. The Washington Post reported that a single lobbyist, Peter Sparber, represented both tobacco and bromine producers, and funneled money to the National Association of State Fire Marshalls, who for more than a decade fought for increased use of chemical fire retardants in place of less toxic methods to control ignition sources like cigarettes (Shin 2008). EPA has now acceded to demands of the bromine industry to alter documents that will be used to set agency health standards. The result of these actions could compromise public health protections from these ubiquitous and toxic pollutants. Environmental Working Group Sat, 01 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.epa.gov/smokefree/pubs/etsfs.html http://tobacco.org/news/297650.html Summary The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published a major assessment of the respiratory health risks of passive smoking ( Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders EPA/600/6-90/006F). The report concludes that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) -- commonly known as secondhand smoke -- is responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults and impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of children. Environmental Protection Agency Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.reynoldsamerican.com/Responsibility/GreenPower.aspx http://tobacco.org/news/294488.html RAI's Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company subsidiary (Santa Fe) continues to be recognized as the tobacco industry's leader in promoting environmental sustainability. Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named the company a "Green Power Partner" in recognition of Santa Fe's use of 100 percent wind-generated electricity for all of its offices and manufacturing facilities. The company's wind power purchases annually eliminate some 2,264 tons of carbon dioxide, 2.39 tons of sulfur dioxide and 3.33 tons of nitrogen oxide by fossil fuel utility plants. In addition to contracting for 100 percent wind-generated power, Santa Fe is moving its entire fleet of vehicles for its sales team to hybrid powered automobiles to save energy and promote a cleaner environment. Reynolds American Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/08/10/article/retired_judge_osteen_has_died http://tobacco.org/news/289924.html Retired federal Judge William Osteen Sr. died Sunday. For nearly 16 years, Osteen served as a U.S. District Court Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina, which is based in Greensboro. Osteen's family declined to provide any further details about his death on Sunday evening. Osteen was born in 1930 in Greensboro, according to the federal judiciary Web site. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve before graduating from Guilford College in 1953. Greensboro News & Record Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.junkscience.com/news2/zion.html http://tobacco.org/news/288419.html And now we have the truth about the anti-smoke fascists. Last week, a federal judge wiped out the entire basis of all this business about the danger of secondhand smoke, a lie that has transformed our culture, from saloons to our homes. In a devastating 94-page opinion, Judge William Osteen put the cat to the Environmental Protection Agency. These ideological hustlers are responsible for all the madness we've experienced since 1993, when, without a scintilla of evidence, they declared that secondhand smoke causes cancer. This "finding" created civil war in America. . . . The EPA was at the ready, helped by Hillary Clinton, whose first edict as First Lady was a no-smoking rule in the White House. The EPA announced that 3,000 people died every year from secondhand smoke. More people by far die from milk, not to mention bird droppings in national forests. But the yuppie audience was ready to buy, and the market went through the roof. In New York, Peter Vallone and Rudy Giuliani banned smoking everywhere but in bars. . . . In March, the World Health Organization was caught with the lie. It is the SS of the Nicotine Nazis. The WHO ran a multi-million-dollar study dedicated to proving that passive smoke causes cancer. It came up empty. The media censored that story. If you didn't read it in my column, you don't know it. And now the media do virtually the same with Judge Osteen's opinion. junkscience.com milloy@cais.com (Sidney Zion) Thu, 23 Jul 1998 04:00:00 GMT http://www.villagevoice.com/1998-12-15/news/tobacco-row http://tobacco.org/news/278864.html Is there any connection between $60,000 worth of tobacco ads in the December issue of Brill's Content and a six-page article in the same issue that bashes the media for overstating the link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer? Absolutely not, says Steve Brill, editor of Brill's Content, who claims the infusion of tobacco money and his publication of a protobacco article are "a total coincidence." . . . The $60,000 December bonus came in the form of four pages from Philip Morris (two pages for Marlboro cigarettes and two pages describing Philip Morris's charitable activities), plus two more from R.J. Reynolds. The ads were placed in September, when a full-page color ad cost $10,000. At the time, Brill says, "There is no way [the advertisers] would have known that story was appearing." Brill has not had an easy time attracting advertisers, in part because of his commitment to hard-hitting stories, and tobacco ads in particular have been sparse. The December issue not only represents a doubling of tobacco ads, it introduces the first Marlboro ad--suggesting increased interest from Philip Morris. . . . Varchaver denies treating Sullum or Schwartz unfairly, given the volume of coverage he was assessing. He admits he downplayed Sullum, in part, because taking money from the tobacco industry detracts from one's credibility. If that's so, then it puts Brill in the same tank with Sullum--except that Brill got paid 12 times as much. Village Voice Tue, 15 Dec 1998 05:00:00 GMT http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/document/page;jsessionid=4AF44D5BEAB6F9F8448730C1992FFA92?tid=gin58e00 http://tobacco.org/news/278661.html OBJECTIVES o IN THE FACE OF NEW REPORT, PM HAS STATED TWO CORPORATE OBJECTIVES: 1. "FORESTALL FURTHER PUBLIC SMOKING RESTRICTIONS/BANS." 2. "CREATE A DECIDED CHANGE IN PUBLIC OPINION. DEVELOP AN ATMOSPHERE MORE CONDUCIVE TO SMOKERS WITH THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND FOR SMOKERS THEMSELVES." . . . O FIRST, SEGMENT POTENTIAL AUDIENCES BY: - BELIEFS - PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES - POSSIBLE CALLS TO ACTION . . . AUDIENCE BUSINESS OWNERS OF PUBLIC PLACES - RESTAURANTS, HOTELS, ENTERTAINMENT VENUES - THEIR ASSOCIATIONS (NRA, ETC.) DEMOGRAPHICS/PSYCHOGRAPHICS o "ENTREPRENEURIAL" O DISLIKE GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE, REGULATION BELIEFS/ATTITUDES O BASED ON THE EPA REPORT, ETS SEEMS BAD O THIS SMOKING ISSUE IS A BIG HASSLE AND FRANKLY, I'M NOT SURE WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT O MY BUSINESS DEPENDS ON SATISFYING THE CUSTOMER AND I DON'T WANT TO LOSE ANY POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS. O I CAN'T AFFORD TO HAVE GOVERNMENT IMPOSE ANY MORE REGULATIONS ON MY BUSINESS DESIRED BELIEFS/ATTITUDES O I DIDN'T REALIZE THAT ETS SMOKE IS SUCH A SMALL PART OF THE AIR QUALITY ISSUE O I WANT TO WORK OUT THE ISSUE ON MY OWN TERMS CONSIDERING WHAT IS BEST FOR MY CUSTOMERS AND BUSINESS O THE "ACCOMMODATION" PROGRAM SEEMS TO BE A SENSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE SMOKING ISSUES DESIRED ACTION O CREATE AND IMPLEMENT POLICIES WHICH "ACCOMMODATE" BOTH SMOKERS/NON-SMOKERS IN THE WORKPLACE - "COURTESY" POS O ASSOCIATIONS JOIN COALITION O WRITE A LETTER VOICING THEIR CONCERNS/OPINIONS . . . AUDIENCE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY, ACADEMIC/RESEARCH M.D.'s . . . DESIRED BELIEFS/ATTITUDES O THE EPA HAS MISUSED SCIENCE TO FORCE A CONCLUSION O THIS "BAD SCIENCE" SHOULD BE REFUTED TO PROTECT ACCEPTED METHODS AND REPUTATION OF COMMUNITY O WE SHOULD REALLY ADDRESS THE BIGGER ISSUE OF AIR QUALITY AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT DESIRED ACTION O REBUT THE EPA SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, METHODS AND CONCLUSIONS IN THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY o FRAME THE ISSUE AS A BIGGER ONE THAN JUST ETS - PROVIDE A CREDIBLE SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE AND PRIORITIES Legacy Tobacco Documents Library Tue, 23 Mar 1993 05:00:00 GMT http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FDA_TRANSITION?SITE=CAWOO&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://tobacco.org/news/274121.html The Food and Drug Administration, bedeviled by a salmonella outbreak and tainted medicine from China, is likely to monitor imports and fresh produce more closely under an Obama administration. With President Bush no longer a roadblock, health officials also can expect new powers to control tobacco, from cigarettes to the recently introduced smokeless products called snus. President-elect Obama, a former smoker struggling to avoid relapse, is a sponsor of legislation giving the FDA authority to control, but not ban, tobacco and nicotine. . . . Obama is being urged to move quickly to appoint an FDA commissioner. Already more than a half-dozen names are in circulation: outside critics such as Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Dr. Steven Nissen; insiders such as Susan Wood, a former director of the FDA's women's health office; and public health advocates such as Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Baltimore's health chief. . . . Under the tobacco proposal, the agency would be able to order changes in tobacco products to make them less toxic and addictive, but could not ban tobacco or nicotine. The bill passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support, but a veto threat from Bush kept it from getting out of Congress. Aides to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., co-author of the tobacco bill, say there is strong interest in getting the legislation passed soon after the new Congress convenes in January. Obama is a co-sponsor. AP Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20080930_Federal_agency_fines_Kauai_tobacco_company.html http://tobacco.org/news/271793.html The federal Environmental Protection Agency fined Vector Tobacco Inc. $65,040 for allegedly misusing six pesticides and then failing to keep workers from getting sick, the EPA announced yesterday. Vector Tobacco, a subsidiary of Vector Tobacco Group of Durham, N.C., has since moved out of the state, agricultural officials added. The company allegedly misused pesticides 93 times by failing to follow label directions at its research facility in Kekaha in 2005 and 2006, according to the EPA. However, "Vector Tobacco cooperated and received a settlement with the EPA without admitting the EPA's allegations," said company spokesman Jonathan Doorley. Honolulu Star-Bulletin tfinnegan@starbulletin.com (Tom Finnegan ) Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2008/09/29/daily2.html http://tobacco.org/news/271759.html The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fined a North Carolina company for violations at a Kauai facility. Vector Tobacco, a subsidiary of Vector Tobacco Group of Durham, N.C., was fined $65,040 for allegedly misusing pesticides during application at its agricultural research facility in Kekaha on Kauai in 2005 and 2006, according to the EPA. On 93 occasions, the company failed to follow label directions intended to protect workers from exposure to pesticides. "Employers of agricultural workers must ensure their employees are provided with information and protections that minimize the risk of potential exposure to pesticides . . . The company also failed to prevent workers from entering areas where pesticides had recently been applied and then denied them prompt transportation to a medical facility after the workers reported adverse health effects due to the pesticide exposure, the EPA said. The Hawaii Department of Agriculture discovered the violations during inspections in 2006 and began an investigation. The EPA said Vector Tobacco has shut down the Kekaha facility since the inspections. Pacific Business News - Honolulu Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.ashevilletribune.com/MainPage/SecondhandSmoke.html http://tobacco.org/news/268738.html In 1992 EPA published its report, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking," claiming SHS is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon). The report has been used by the tobacco-control movement and government agencies, including public health departments, to justify the imposition of thousands of indoor smoking bans in public places. Flawed Assumptions EPA's 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge. Even so, the EPA report was cited in the surgeon general's 2006 report on SHS, where then-Surgeon General Richard Carmona made the absurd claim that there is no risk-free level of exposure to SHS. . . . -- Dr. Jerome Arnett Jr. (jerry.arnett@gmail.com) is a pulmonologist who lives in Helvetia, West Virginia. Asheville Tribune jerry.arnett@gmail.com ([item undated] Jereome Arnett, Jr., M.D / The Heartland Institute ) Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.newrichmond-news.com/articles/index.cfm?id=21459&section=Opinion&freebie_check&CFID=43406924&CFTOKEN=39066750&jsessionid=8830a76250b261395e54 http://tobacco.org/news/266513.html Governor Jim Doyle’s promotion of Senator Breske is an insult to the people of Wisconsin. It is a veiled attempt of “If you can’t beat them promote them.” Of course I am referring to the smoking ban. As everyone knows Senator Breske and the Tavern League have been major obstacles in getting the ban passed. The Tobacco Control groups have been using fear and out and out lies to push their agenda through. They claim that repeating the studies verifies that the low statistical risk is conclusive proof yet they cannot show any other causes of diseases with equally low risk ratios that have been proven conclusively. . . . An award-winning article in Science Epidemiology faces its limits bares this out there is no consensus on any low risk ratio study as being fact. They believe that a lie repeated often enough becomes fact. OSHA looked at all of the studies and found that the levels in ETS would not exceed Permissible Exposure Levels. If the evidence is so overwhelming how come they haven’t successfully sued the tobacco companies for ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) exposure? To answer this you have to go back to 1992 when the EPA first came out with their infamous report declaring ETS a carcinogen. The problem is that they faked the study. The study was thrown out in court by Judge Osteen, it was also examined by the Congressional Research Service and found inconclusive. Now let’s jump ahead to the 2006 Surgeon Generals report. Not only does it contain mostly the same studies as the faked EPA report but the same activist players. . . . should we be passing laws on wishcraft science that couldn’t hold up in a court of law? Why haven’t these activists successfully sued the tobacco companies? Could it be the proof just isn’t there? New Richmond News Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882121714933013.html http://tobacco.org/news/263881.html handing off tobacco to the EPA makes about as much sense as its nearly completed pass to the Food and Drug Administration. A bill expected to be voted on soon would impose new restrictions on marketing, raise cigarette taxes, and police the ingredients in tobacco products, including nicotine levels. Any reckless FDA policy is bound to be popular . . . it contradicts the premise of the federal government's case against Big Tobacco. Initiated by Janet Reno and continued by the Bush Administration, the federal suit argued that the industry committed fraud by falsely implying that light or low-tar cigarettes were healthier than standard smokes. Now Congress wants the FDA to mandate less nicotine and tar - the very practices it once claimed to find so odious. In a final irony, the politicians backing this bill, especially sponsors Ted Kennedy and Henry Waxman, are the same ones demanding that the FDA crack down on "Big Pharma." They say it isn't doing enough to protect the public from risky but possibly beneficial new drugs. So: Lend the FDA imprimatur to an inherently dangerous product to fatten it up for taxation, while at the same time slow down or block the approval of life-saving therapies that treat disease instead of cause it. Congressional priorities are rarely so grotesque. The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08092/869431-35.stm http://tobacco.org/news/262401.html The March 13 story "EPA Doesn't Follow Scientific Smog Advice" prompts me to write. Not only is this government as usual -- ignoring the best scientific advice -- but even at the modest ozone improvement in the ruling, an estimated "900 to 1,100 premature deaths a year" would be saved albeit at a cost of an estimated $8.8 billion a year. In the same day's paper, I read that secondhand smoke in Pennsylvania alone causes over 2,000 premature deaths a year. By strictly banning smoking in all public places, at essentially no cost, twice as many premature deaths could be prevented. . . . By banning smoking everywhere, hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved each year. Oh, but I forget. With the government and big business, it is always about the money and the mega-dollars that roll in to the political coffers as well as the billions government at many levels gets from taxing the product that would be lost if a ban were enacted. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT