http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/org/epa.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us 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 http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/x375176734 http://tobacco.org/news/261982.html No wonder, then, that people are troubled by a recent Associated Press investigation that showed this and other analgesics mingling in America's water supply. The AP surveyed dozens of metropolitan areas and their watersheds and found acetaminophen and aspirin, along with amoxicillin, atorvastatin, atenolol and azithromycin. And those are just the A's. . . . On the outtake end, the EPA should mandate that wastewater plants at minimum screen for caffeine and nicotine, which indicate the presence of other drugs. Have them test wastewater sludge, too. Meanwhile, there's not much people can do about excreted medications, but the people should forget the old advice about putting unused meds down toilets and sinks. Take them back to the pharmacy. Metro West Daily News nsimmon@cnc.com Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.heraldonline.com/opinions/vop/story/352740.html http://tobacco.org/news/259657.html In a guest editorial on Jan. 26, Carson Taylor attacks "anti-smoking zealots" who rely on "junk science" to press for laws protecting the public from secondhand smoke. He doesn't identify these zealots, but I will. They include the surgeon general, EPA, Center for Disease Control, National Institute of Health, WHO and virtually every other public health organization on the planet. Even Phillip Morris USA officially admits the risk. . . . Now they indirectly fund outside groups such as "Citizens Against Government Interference" and "My Smokers' Rights," to do the dirty work for them. Internal tobacco industry documents, made public by a lawsuit, reveal the strategy. "Our overriding objective is to discredit the EPA report. . . . The Internet is full of sites claiming the moon landing was a hoax, Elvis is still alive and there is a conspiracy, hatched by public health officials around the world, to attack secondhand smoke with "junk science." As for me, I'm siding with the surgeon general Rock Hill Herald Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.heraldonline.com/opinions/contrary/story/319535.html http://tobacco.org/news/259656.html It has been said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will begin to believe it. That adage has served the anti-smoking zealots well. We are told repeatedly that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke results in the annual deaths of 46,000 nonsmokers due to heart disease and 3,000 from lung cancer. The problem with these numbers is that they are not true. . . . Henry Mizgala, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia, is one of many leading doctors and epidemiologists who spoke out against this study. He stated, "This is, in my opinion, gross misrepresentation designed to provide maximal public impact in furthering the biased and unscientific opinions of these authors. This so-called study does not even come close to meeting the basic criteria of a properly executed scientific study." In conclusion, it is logical to seek to ban smoking due to many factors, odor, nuisance, etc. However, justifying such bans based on junk science and fear is inexcusable. Rock Hill Herald Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/dow-our-unethic.html http://tobacco.org/news/250736.html A common pesticide re-approved by the EPA in 2001 sickens farm workers, say unions and activists who will file a lawsuit against the agency today, reports the Associated Press. The pesticide is chlorpyrifos . . . The EPA agreed to look at these results because they didn't have money to do the testing themselves and because, under Bush-picked agency head and former tobacco industry pet scientist Stephen Johnson, testing chemicals on humans isn't as inhumanly unethical as it used to be. Wired adam_rogers@wiredmag.com (Brandon Keim) Wed, 01 Aug 2007 04:00:00 GMT http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/15/AR2007041500468.html http://tobacco.org/news/245375.html Lead, a highly toxic element, can cause severe nerve damage, especially in children. The EPA says lead emissions have dropped more than 90 percent since it was first listed as an air pollutant in 1976, mainly by removing lead from gasoline. Other sources of exposure to it include food and soil, solid waste, coal, oil, iron and steel production, lead smelters and tobacco smoke. AP Sun, 15 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/7033632.html http://tobacco.org/news/245374.html Readers of the Review-Journal commentary page may have noticed an essay by George Mason University economist Walter Williams on Friday. Williams noted it's now common to claim scientific validity for political edicts which remove the property right of a restaurant or tavern owner to decide whether to allow smoking on his premises, based on the assertion that "everyone knows" secondhand smoke kills people. In fact, Williams recalls for us how our politically financed and motivated "scientists" reached that conclusion. In their 1993 study, the EPA claimed that 3,000 Americans die annually from secondhand smoke. "But there was a problem," Williams recalls. "They couldn't come up with that conclusion using the standard statistical 95 percent confidence interval. They lowered their study's confidence interval to 90 percent. That has the effect of doubling the margin of error and doubling the probability that mere chance explains those 3,000 deaths." The Congressional Research Service (CRS) said at the time, "Admittedly, it is unusual to return to a study after the fact, lower the required significance level, and declare its results to be supportive rather than unsupportive of the effect one's theory suggests should be present." What's the real science? In 1998, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer released the largest ever and best formulated study on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), Williams reports. "The research project ran for 10 years and in seven European countries. The study, not widely publicized, concluded that no statistically significant risk existed for nonsmokers who either lived or worked with smokers." . . . "The public policy debate on smoking has been settled through bogus science," Williams concluded, Friday. "My question is, how willing are we to allow bogus science to be used in the pursuit of other public policy agendas, such as restrictions on economic growth, in the name of fighting global warming?" Las Vegas Review-Journal vsuprynowicz@reviewjournal.com (VIN SUPRYNOWICZ) Sun, 15 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040200487.html?nav=hcmodule http://tobacco.org/news/244638.html The Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration yesterday for refusing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, siding with environmentalists in the court's first examination of the phenomenon of global warming. The court ruled 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by improperly declining to regulate new-vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming. The Washington Post Tue, 03 Apr 2007 04:00:00 GMT http://www.oldhamera.com/articles/2007/04/02/news/news03.txt http://tobacco.org/news/244629.html Lobbyist group Smoke-free Oldham scored a victory March 20 in its fight to pass a comprehensive smoking ban in Oldham County. After a Smoke-Free Oldham volunteer contacted the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA officials removed a Web page from its Internet site that provided guidelines for a smoke-free room. The EPA guidelines for maintaining a smoker's lounge are cited in a proposed amendment to the comprehensive smoking-ban ordinance that is currently before Oldham County Fiscal Court. The guidelines come from a 1993 EPA document called, "Secondhand Smoke: What You Can Do as Parents, Decisionmakers and Building Occupants." John Sutton, a Crestwood resident who contacted the EPA, said the agency's speedy removal of guidelines from the Web site shows that fiscal court should not pass the amendment. "I would like the fiscal court to know they are looking at dated information," Sutton said at a press conference last Friday. . . . ' But Liz Burrows, project director for Smoke-Free Oldham, said she hopes the EPA's decision prompts magistrates to rethink the amendment. "I just can't imagine that they would base an amendment on guidelines that the EPA no longer supports," she said. Bob Axelrad, senior policy advisor for the indoor environments division of the EPA, wrote in an e-mail to Sutton that the agency must update the information, and that the information was never intended for use in legislation. Oldham Era mhengel@oldhamera.com (Mark Hengel) Thu, 29 Mar 2007 04:00:00 GMT http://www.bat.com/OneWeb/sites/uk__3mnfen.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/DO53DPKZ?opendocument&SID=&DTC=&TMP=1 http://tobacco.org/news/241286.html The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a �?~Risk Assessment�?(TM) of environmental tobacco smoke and declared in 1993 that ETS was a cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. This finding was heavily criticised by the US Congressional Research Services. It was also challenged by Philip Morris and others in the US tobacco industry in a Federal court in North Carolina. In 1998, the court rejected the EPA risk assessment and the judge declared the EPA�?(TM)s finding invalid. . . . Although this Federal court’s judgement was later overturned on appeal on technical grounds, the judge’s analysis of the EPA’s approach remains an important commentary. BAT Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:00:00 GMT http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/2074153715-3721.html http://tobacco.org/news/238466.html This 1995 narrative written by "Todd" (who is presumably Todd Haymore, a staffer for then-Congressman L.F. Payne, D-VA) chronicles a series of back room meetings between the White House and representatives from tobacco-growing states to broker a deal to stop the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's efforts to regulate nicotine a drug. The memo, a chronology of events apparently written to refresh Payne's memory, indicates that then-White House chief of Staff Leon Panetta engaged in secret negotiations with representatives of tobacco-growing states to "remove [FDA Commissioner] Kessler from the radar." Panetta dangled a proposal in front of tobacco companies, telling the representatives that "voluntary action" by tobacco companies on the youth access issue "may be the best way to stop Kessler from attempting to regulate tobacco products" : "AFTER IT BECAME APPARENT THAT THE FDA/KESSLER SITUATION WAS THE GREATEST PROBLEM FACING TOBACCO STATE MEMBERS, IT WAS DECIDED THAT VOLUNTARY ACTION BY THE TOBACCO COMPANIES ON YOUTH ACCESS ISSUES MAYBE THE BEST WAY TO STOP KESSLER FROM ATTEMPTING TO REGULATE TOBACCO PRODUCTS.PANETTA SAID THAT IF THE INDUSTRY CAME FORTH WITH A VOLUNTARY PROPOSAL AIMED AT REDUCING YOUTH ACCESS, THE ADMINISTRATION WOULD REMOVE KESSLER/FDA FROM THE RADAR." The memo also indicates White House attempts to keep the negotiations secret: "Panetta stressed the need to keep this meeting and the comments within as quiet as possible. He said that if the meeting or discussions reached the press, the 'negotiations' would be off and the White House would deny knowing about them." Congressman Thomas Bliley (R-VA) met with tobacco industry leaders and told them about the White House's youth access proposal. The industry put together a proposal and submitted it to Panetta. As a subsequent meeting, Panetta warned Congressmembers L.F. Payne (D-VA), Bliley (R-VA) and Charlie Rose (D-NC) "to keep this proposal and this meeting very quiet because media leaks would cancel any further discussions." Ultimately, White House Counsel Abner Mikva reviewed the industry's proposal and made a counter proposal that the industry found unacceptable. There is no way to know the affect these negotiations may have had on tobacco companies ramping up of youth smoking prevention programs in the mid-1990s. TDO: Tobacco Documents Online Thu, 07 Dec 2006 05:00:00 GMT http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006/072006/07292006/207786 http://tobacco.org/news/229228.html -"Second- hand smoke debate 'over.'" That's the message from the surgeon general's office, delivered by a sycophantic media. The claim is that the science has now overwhelmingly proved that smoke from others' cigarettes can kill you. Actually, "debate over" simply means: "If you have your doubts, shut up!" But you definitely should have doubts over the new surgeon general's report, a massive, 727-page doorstop. Like many massive reports on controversial issues, it's probably designed that way, so that nobody (especially reporters on deadline) will want to or have time to read beyond the executive summary--or maybe even the press release. Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star Sat, 29 Jul 2006 04:00:00 GMT