HYPE AND HYSTERIA ABOUT SECONDARY SMOKE

MORE THAN 50,000 PEOPLE DIE EACH YEAR FROM HEART DISEASE DUE TO SECONDHAND SMOKE -- FALSE

At the Seventh World Conference on Tobacco and Health held in Perth, Australia in 1990, anti-smoker crusader Stanton Glantz gave the keynote address in which he said, among other things: "The main thing the science has done on the issue of ETS, in addition to help people like me pay mortgages, is it has legitimized the concerns that people have that they don't like cigarette smoke. And that is a strong emotional force that needs to be harnessed and used. We're on a roll, and the bastards are on the run. And I urge you to keep chasing them."

But the public was not terribly incensed about the alleged "3000" deaths each year blamed on secondary smoke. So to create a problem of epidemic proportions that could be used in the war on smokers, �and using several disparate epidemiological "studies," Stanton Glantz performed a meta-analysis which was published in the journal Circulation in 1991, and republished in JAMA in 1995. (Of the 12 studies on fatal myocardial events used by Glantz in this review, 8 showed NO statistically significant risk for ets exposure in non-smokers; of the 11 studies covering non-fatal myocardial events, 10 failed to show a significant link.) Relying heavily on questionable research about a tiny increase in arterial deposits, Glantz came to the conclusion that if a non-smoker exposed to secondary smoke had 20% increase in arterial deposits, then 20% of the 1,000,000 heart disease deaths each year must be attributed to secondary smoke. Disregarding the concept of "threshold," he wrote a massive paper on it and his conclusions have been used since to claim more than 50,000 deaths due to secondary smoke each year.

Realizing the flimsy basis for such a claim, no agency of the U.S. government--including the EPA and the CDC--has officially endorsed Glantz's misrepresentation of the facts. However, even with this most blatant misuse of science, the American Heart Association still uses Glantz's biased figure of 50,000 deaths a year as does the anti-smoker cartel of NGOs, pharmaceutical companies, once-respected charities, and paid professional anti-smoking activists.

MORE THAN 3,000 PEOPLE EACH YEAR DIE OF LUNG CANCER DUE TO SECONDHAND SMOKE -- FALSE

In 1992, the EPA report "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking," based on a meta analysis of 11 separate studies, uses 3,000 deaths per year attributable to environmental tobacco smoke. Federal judge William Osteen, the very same judge who had earlier ruled that the FDA should control tobacco, overturned the EPA's fraudulent report. He said that the EPA "publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun... disregarded information and made findings on selective information; did not disseminate significant epidemiologic information; deviated from its own Risk Assessment Guidelines; failed to disclose important findings and reasoning; left significant questions without answers... produced limited evidence, then claimed the weight of the Agency's research evidence demonstrated ETS causes cancer." �In short, the report was faked.

In 1995�the Congressional Research Service (a 741 person, $62 million per year think tank that works exclusively for Congress) rejects EPA and 3 other studies as not statistically significant and tainted by poor research and analysis. After 20 months and several million dollars, the CRS stated: "It is very possible that no deaths have been caused by environmental tobacco smoke." It found no basis for a proposed OSHA smoking ban in federal workplaces.

In 1998, the World Health Organization study on environmental tobacco smoke, purportedly the largest such ever undertaken, comprising 20 years in 38 centers in 21 countries was denounced by anti-smoking activists because it minimized the allegedly detrimental effects of environmental tobacco smoke. It actually showed no statistically significant increase (1.16) in lung cancer in non-smokers who had lived and worked with smokers for 40-50 years. WHO didn't release the study at all until it was leaked to a newspaper, and when they did release the study, it was accompanied by a press release whose headline screamed: "Passive Smoke Does Cause Cancer, Do Not Let Them Fool You," which was published verbatim by the popular press here and abroad. Apparently not one of the journalists took the trouble to read the actual study.

ASTHMA IN CHILDREN IS CAUSED BY SECONDHAND SMOKE -- FALSE

Dr. Fernando Martinez, director of respiratory sciences at the University of Arizona and co-author of Chapter 8 of the 1993 EPA Report on environmental tobacco smoke, the chapter that dealt with asthma and other respiratory diseases, is among those specialists who believe that improved hygiene and overuse of antibiotics are at the heart of the problem. "Like most people," he says, "I assumed tobacco smoke and pollution were the problem -- this was the politically correct way to think. �But these factors turned out not to play a major role."

In 1970, 44.1% of all males in the US smoked, 33.9% of females smoked. That year the number of hospital discharges for asthma in the under 15 age group was 33,000 (5.8%).

In 1980, 37.6% of males smoked, 29.3% of females smoked. The number of �under 15 hospital discharges for asthma was 124,000 (24.2%).

In 1990, 28.4%, 22.8% females smoked. The number of under 15 hospital discharges was 169,000 (30.8%).

So while smoking decreased to nearly half the smoking rates of 1970, the number of children with asthma attacks severe enough for hospitalization skyrocketed six times from 5% to 30%.�While other respiratory illnesses do not show such a monotronic curve, they too are on the increase as smoking decreases. According to the CDC, adult and childhood asthma cases have increased from approximately 6.7 million in 1980 when people smoked virtually everywhere to 17.3 million in 1998 when smokers seldom even smoke in their own homes. Blaming secondary smoke for asthma is nothing more than an emotion-laden gimmick in the war on smokers.

�SIDS IS CAUSED BY SECONDHAND SMOKE -- FALSE

�No one knows what causes SIDS. Ask any pediatrician.

�

SMOKING BANS ARE GOOD FOR BUSINESS

When the hospitality industry in California claimed that business was down due to the harsh smoking restrictions, and that claim began to effect other areas of the country in which ANR (Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, founded by Stanton Glantz) was attempting to enact similar laws, Glantz produced a "study" that showed business was up.

Dr. Michael K. Evans, a respected economist, accused Glantz of misrepresenting data in a study that was apparently designed to mislead elected officials. A Sacramento court issued a restraining order against Glantz for destroying documents in the above case and required him to show why he should not be held in contempt of court. It also charged him with unauthorized use of University of California resources for political lobbying, electioneering and private political activities, and of using his time on the University payroll to do so.

Until recently, Glantz's "study" was the only one ever done and anti-tobacco crusaders conveniently ignored the questions brought up by Dr. Evans. Early in 2001 another study was completed, a study that cost no taxpayer dollars, a study performed by a non-smoker, a study that took into account all the things that Glantz's "study" didn't, and it came to a very different conclusion. With the growth rate of California since the smoking bans were enacted, it would be expected that there would be 1036 MORE dine-in restaurants than there are. The anti-smoker crusaders set out to change society and they have indeed done so, to the detriment of society.