Tobacco Documents Online

STATEMENT BY WILLIAM K. REILLY ADMINISTRATOR U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ON ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE JANUARY 7, 1992 Good morning. I would like to begin by thanking Secretary Sullivan for joining me this morning to announce the findings of a very important study on the health risks of breathing environmental tobacco smoke. Scientists and medical professionals have known for years that smoking cigarettes causes serious health problems including lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease. In fact, more than 425,000 people die in the United States each year as a result of diseases related to smoking. Smoking is the leading r v n 1 cause of death in our society today. While the smoking rate in this country has declined significantly in the last 20 years or so, approximately 25% of the adult [meaning 18 & over] population today still chooses to smoke, despite the best efforts to educate people -- particularly young people -- about the serious health risks and addictive nature of smoking. Today, I am releasing a major report that provides new documentation of the growing scientific consensus that smoking is not just a health risk for smokers, it is in fact also a significant risk for nonsmokers and particularly for children who are exposed to tobacco smoke. Environmental tobacco smoke, secondhand smoke, involuntary smoking, passive smoking -- whatever you may call it -- has now been shown conclusively to increase the risk of lung cancer in healthy n_4_nsmokers. This peer reviewed report estimates that

at my confirmation hearing 4 years ago I said I thought it odd that EPA and the nation had invested so much priority and money in cleaning up the air outdoors, and had paid hardly any attention to the problem of air pollution in r, where people spend 90% of their time. I pledged to increase the priority for indoor air quality. I am pleased that we have substantially increased the funding, personnel and research dollars devoted to indoor air pollution. We have launched an aggressive campaign of public education about the risks posed by radon. The report I am releasing today I expect to be as important and influential, both in the United States and throughout the world, as any EPA has ever done. Because of the large percentage of time we all spend indoors, ETS and radon may present the most important environmental health risks we face today. And ETS in particular is something we can personally take steps to prevent, especially in the home, where we spend so much time and in the confined spaces such as automobiles, which dramatically increase the concentrations. We can also be especially conscious about not letting others smoke around our children. The responsibility to protect the safety of the indoor environment belongs to everyone who occupies or controls that environment. Before I turn the podium over to Secretary Sullivan, I would like to note that I invited him to join me this morning because of the leadership and dedication he has shown in dealing with tobacco issues during his tenure as Secretary of Health and Human Services. While EPA is solely responsible for the contents of this report, I am very proud to have been able to work with Dr. Sullivan over the past four years -- President Bush announced our appointments on the same day in fact. I believe that his perspective on the health risks of secondhand smoke is an extremely important one. Dr. Sullivan.

thorough. The report stands as an example of EPA's commitment to public involvement and good science. I am very proud of the rigorous analysis and close attention to detail that went into it. Many of the nation's foremost experts on this issue were instrumental in preparing and reviewing this work. Drafts of the report were twice publicly reviewed by the Agency's Science Advisory Board, a group of independent scientists who unanimously concurred with EPA declaring ETS a known human carcinogen, one of only 10 hazardous compounds to be designated as such by the agency. What are the implications of this report for public policy? Good environmental policy must be grounded in sound science. My philosophy is, first do the scientific analysis, and only then build the policy, determine the priority and devise the strategy based on a firm scientific foundation. With this report we have laid the firm foundation upon which policy can now be built. While EPA has no regulatory authority over ETS, we will be working with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which can regulate smoking in the workplace. I hope that this report will form the scientific basis for a policy on their part. I believe that this report will be an invaluable tool for policymakers and health professionals wrestling with the problem of how to reduce or eliminate exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke in publicly accessible areas. EPA intends to work closely with the Office of Smoking and Health at the Department of Health and Human Services and with other organizations to ensure that the findings of this report are widely available, both here in this country as well as internationally, where smoking -- active and passive -- is becoming a much greater concern. I am personally very pleased to be able to announce the findings of this report as one of my last official acts as Administrator of EPA. In my opening statement before the Senate

Environmental Tobacco Smoke is responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths in the United States each year. Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that passive smoking causes serious respiratory problems for hundreds of thousands of children each year. Exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. EPA estimates that between 150,000 and 300,000 cases of infections of the respiratory systems annually - in infants and young children up to 18 months of age - are attributable to exposure to tobacco smoke from parents who smoke. Of these, more than 7,500 result in hospitalization. Secondhand smoke increases the frequency of episodes and severity of symptoms in asthmatic children. The report estimates that 200,000 to 1,000,000 asthmatics have their condition worsened by exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. Secondhand smoke is also a risk factor for new cases of asthma in children who have not previously displayed symptoms. Secondhand smoke increases the prevalence of fluid in the middle ear, a sign of chronic middle ear disease. Fluid in the middle ear is the single most frequent cause of hospitalization of young children for an operation, and also imposes a heavy financial burden on the health-care system. Secondhand smoke also irritates the upper respiratory tract and is associated with a small but significant reduction in lung function. The conclusions about lung cancer are based on several primary analytical findings: first, the chemical and physical similarity of environmental tobacco smoke to the mainstream smoke inhaled by smokers; second, the known lung carcinogenicity of mainstream smoke; third, the known exposure of nonsmokers to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and uptake by

the body; and fourth, a thorough and comprehensive analysis of more than 30 studies on those who have never smoked in both the United States and abroad demonstrating an exposure response relationship between lung cancer and environmental exposure to secondhand smoke, usually in spouses of smokers. Taken together, the total weight-of- evidence is conclusive that Environmental Tobacco Smoke increases the risk of lung cancer in nonsmokers. About 140,000 people in the U.S. die of lung cancer alone each year, as opposed to deaths from all smoking complications. Put another way, a smoker's risk of developing lung cancer is about 1-in-10 to 1-in-20. People who have never smoked face a lower risk of lung cancer by 20 fold -- about 5 in 1,000. Today, EPA is announcing that about 20 percent of all lung cancers caused by factors other than smoking are attributable to exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. That is a risk of about 1-in-1,000. Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke varies, but higher exposures cause higher risks. For example, people whose spouses smoke in the home face an additional risk of about 2-in-1000. Risks in this range are considered high. Merely for comparison, EPA generally sets its standards or regulations so that risks are below 1-in-1,000 to 1-in-1 million. In other words, the risks associated with environmental tobacco smoke are at least an order of magnitude greater than they are for virtually any chemical or risk that EPA regulates. The conclusions on childhood respiratory health are based on more than 100 studies, including more than 50 recent studies in children documenting the fact that secondhand smoke is a real problem for your children and infants. The effort that went into the preparation of this report has been painstaking and