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Enclosed please find newspaper, newsletter, and magazine articles with background information on Dr. Stanton Glantz. Also, please find biographical and bibliographical material.
Fields
- Named Organization
- AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organiza)Labor Union
- Agency for International Development
- American Cancer Society
- American College of Cardiology
- American Federation of Government Employees
- American Lung AssociationVoluntary health organization concerned with fighting lung disease, promoting lung health and advocating clean air, indoors and out.
- Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (Anti tobacco organization)Concerned with clean indoor air.
- Arnold & Porter (PM Counsel)Counsel for Philip Morris.
- ASH (Action on Smoking and Health)Action on Smoking and Health
- Associated Press (AP) (National Uniform Press Service)
- Bank of America
- California Air Resources Board
- Californians for Nonsmokers' Rights (Americans for Nonsmokers rights precursor)Precursor organization to Americans for Nonsmokers Rights
- Chicago Tribune
- Cornell University (Ithaca, New York)
- *Department of Health and Human Services
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
- Federal Trade Commission (Enforcement agency for laws against deceptive advertising)Enforces laws against false and deceptive advertising, including ads for tobacco products. Ensures proper display of health warnings in ads and on tobacco products;collects and reports to Congress information concerning cigarette and smokeless tobacco advertising, sales expenditures, and the tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide content of cigarettes.
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Ford Motor Company
- General Services Administration (GSA)
- George Mason University
- George Washington University
- Georgetown University
- Liggett & Myers Inc. (Pioneer in the generic cigarette business)Cigarette manufacturer; Pioneer in the generic cigarette business; L&M is the manufacturer of Chesterfield, Decade, Dorado, Duke of Durham in 1958, Eagle, Eve, L&M, Lark, Pyramid and Stride cigarettes
- Liggett Group Inc. (American cigarette manufacturer)American cigarette manufacturer, was the first to start selling discount brands (GPC)
- Lorillard Inc. (American cigarette manufacturer)American cigarette manufacturer
- Los Angeles Times
- National Academy of Sciences
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (An addiction research center in Baltimore, MD)An addiction research center located in Baltimore, MD
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- New York Times
- Newsweek (Weekly News Magazine (U.S.A.))
- NYT (New York Times - newspaper for New York, NY)New York Times
- Office on Smoking and HealthResponsible for creating reports on the health effects of smoking. Created by the Public Health Service.
- Philip Morris & Co. Ltd. (Cigarette manufacturer, incorporated in U.S. in 1902)Philip Morris & Co. Ltd.., was incorporated in New York in April of 1902; half the shares were held by the parent company in London, and the balance by its U.S. distributor and his American associate. Its overall sales in 1903, its first full year of U.S. operation, were a modest seven million cigarettes. Among the brand offered, besides Philip Morris, were Blues, Cambridge, Derby, and a ladies favorite name for the London street where the home companies factory was located - Marlborough.
- Philip Morris Companies Inc. (Parent company of Philip Morris USA, Kraft, Miller)America's seventh-largest industrial enterprise in 1993, owns Kraft, Miller Brewing, General Foods, and more.
- R.J. Reynolds Corporation (second tier subsidiary of RJR Industries)
- Senate
- State University of New York at Stony Brook
- Subcommittee on Health and the Environment
- Tobacco Institute (Industry Trade Association)The purpose of the Institute was to defeat legislation unfavorable to the industry, put a positive spin on the tobacco industry, bolster the industry's credibility with legislators and the public, and help maintain the controversy over "the primary issue" (the health issue).
- *University of California (use specific branch)
- University of California at San Francisco
- University of California San Francisco
- University of Houston
- University of Wisconsin
- Veterans Administration
- Washington Post (Newspaper)
- Washington Technical Information Group, Inc.
- Washington University Medical Center
- Weinberg Group
- Wells Fargo
- Named Person
- Alli, William E.
- Annese, Betsy J. (RJR VP of Public Affairs, c. 1994)
- Banzhaf, John F., III (Exec. Dir. Action of Smoking & Health (ASH))Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).Professor of Law at Georgetown. Banzhaf succeeded in using the Fairness Doctrine to get cigarette commercials off television in 1968. See Banzhaf FCC, 405 F, 2d 1082 (D.C. Cir. 1968) (affirming FCC ruling that radio and television stations must devote a significant amount of broadcast time to case against smoking). His telephone number is (202) 659-4310. The big focus in past years has been to force OSHA to enforce smoking bans, per Matt Bars. ASH publishes Smoking and Health Review bulletins. "A leading anti-smoking activist" (Chic. Sun-Times 6/23/93). Action on Smoking and Health is located at 2013 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. (Castano Expert List) See Action on Smoking a Health, TTLA Almanac - Names.
- Barr, Glenn
- Bernstein, Matt
- Bleakley, Peter K. (PM Attorney, Arnold & Porter)Defense
- Brody, Jane E.
- Butch, J. Thomas, Jr.
- Cahn, Robert A.
- Cipollone, Antonio (Husband to Decedent Plaintiff in Cipollone v. Liggett)
- Cipollone, Rose Defrancesco (Lung Cancer Victim, Plaintiff in Cipollone v. Liggett))
- Cowley, Geoffrey
- Davis, Ronald M.
- Dawson [Moran], Brennan M. (TI Senior VP (known as Brennan Moran 1982-87))Tobacco Institute Senior Vice President.
- Edell, Marc Z. (Plaintiff's atty, tried the Cipollone case)Attorney, worked for for Budd Larner Gross Picillo Rosenbaum Greenberg & Sade in Short Hills, (West Orange?) NJ. Tried the Cipollone case. Represented Susan Haines in a wrongful death suit (Jenkins, p. 143).
- Evans, Richard I.
- Garfinkel, Lawrence (Epidemiology & Statistics VP, ACS, Plaintiff's Expert)Lawrence Garfinkel was an American Cancer Society official. He did a study which disputed a "Japanese Study" of early 1980s that concluded nonsmoking wives of smokers had a higher cancer rate than the smoking husbands (E. Whelan 1984). In an early 1980s ad, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company quoted Garfinkle, out of context, to attempt to prove that passive smoking is not an important health-policy issue. Garfinkle protested by letter to the N.Y. Times (L. White, Merchants 1988).
- Gladwell, Malcolm
- Glantz, Stanton
- Glantz, Stanton A.
- Godfrey, Arthur (radio host who had lung cancer)
- Grant, Ed
- Hall, Duane
- Hanauer, Peter
- Hope, Bob
- Jenkins, Margaret
- Kearney, Thomas
- Kill, May
- Koop, C. Everett, M.D. (Surgeon General ('81-'89))former US Surgeon General (1981-1989)
- Kornegay, Horace R. (TI President and Exec. Director)VP Leaf Ops (RJR), TI Chairman (1985)
- Lewis, Robert J.
- Macneill, Scott
- Magnani, Peter
- Martin, Claude R., Jr., Ph.D. (Marketing Prof., U of Michigan, Industry Expert)Mr. Martin is an Expert on Advertising and Consumer Behavior Management and he gave a deposition that was 317 pgs with 15 exhibits on 10/30/87 and 12/23/87. (PMI's Revised Initial Disclosure, June 27, 1996). He was used as an expert in the Mississippi case.
- Mccarthy, Terrence
- Mcmillan, Penelope
- Merriman, Walker
- Meyers, Mathew
- Mintz, Morton (Reporter, Washington Post c. 1971)
- Mold, James Davis, Ph.D. (LM Asst. Research Director)[Summary by Anne Landman 2003-09-25] Went to work as a scientist for Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. in 1955resigned in 1979. (MNAT007267450) (N.M., L & M Liability Notebook, Section 3, Personnel List) He was an Assistant Research Director for Liggett & Myers, Inc. until 1979. He was assigned to identify the ingredients in cigarette smoke that caused cancer in mice. For 25 years, Mold worked on a project to develop a safer cigarette. By 1980, he had developed a cigarette that would be safe to smoke. Mold concluded that cigarette smoking contributed to lung cancer in human beings. Mold has knowledge of the health hazards of tobacco products and the suppression of research and development by the tobacco industry. (ABC Primetime Live 02/25/93) James David Mold was Head of Liggett & Meyers Organic Chemical Research. (PMI's Introduction to Privilege Log and Glossary of Names, Estate of Burl Butler v. PMI, et al, April 19, 1996) James Mold was a scientist for Liggett & Myers in 1955. Address: Durham, NC. He went to work for Liggett in 1955 and he was assigned to identify the ingredients in cigarette smoke that caused cancer in lab mice. They found what the materials present that were causing the cancers on mice skin. The company Executives said "go ahead" to see if a safer cigarette could be developed. Dr. Mold spent 25 years working on the "XA" project developing a different cigarette, specially treated with chemicals that caused no cancer in lab animals. By 1980 he had developed a cigarette that would be safe to smoke. When the XA cigarettes were finally ready for production and marketing in 1978, company lawyers stepped in and scuttled the project. The legal department was afraid that putting out such a cigarette would hurt their courtroom defenses (ABC Primetime Live 2/25/93). Dr. James Mold, while an assistant research director at Liggett in the late 1950s or early 1960s concluded that cigarette smoking contributed to the incidence of lung cancer in human beings. Mold has admitted that CTR's research efforts were not directed to resolving the smoking and health issues and that Liggett Executives did not permit him to publish information about the Liggett/A.D. Little mouse painting experiments, which confirmed that the contents of cigarette smoke caused cancer (Allman complaint, p. 49). Scientists and consultants for Liggett Group Inc. poured more than 20 years into developing a catalyst--made of palladium and magnesium nitrate--that purportedly destroyed cancer-causing compounds in cigarette smoke, according to testimony in a New Jersey wrongful-death case [Cipollone? Haines?] (LAT 7/19/94), Bmt. Project TAME, as it was known inside the company, was abandoned about 1979 because of litigation fears, according to testimony [in Cipollone] by Liggett's former assistant research director, James D. Mold (LAT 7/19/94). According to Mold, "They felt that such a cigarette, if put on the market, would seriously indict them for having sold other types of cigarettes", in a deposition, Mold said that he was forbidden by Liggett to publish his research on the subject (LAT 7/19/94). See Mold, Thomas Dr., TTLA Almanac - Names. See Personnel List Part 1: Presumed -Pro-Plaintiff, also TTLA Almanac - Names. Testified in Cippollone. Died 2002.
- Panzer, Frederick (TI VP of Issues Management c. 1988)Vice president of The Tobacco Institute, early 1970's
- Parmley, William (chairman of the dept of cardiology at UCSF)
- Ross, Bill
- Rubino, Christopher
- Russell, Rosalind
- Smith, Bob
- Stevens, Ted
- Thomas, Kay
- Tollison, Robert D. (industry consultant)1994 Used by industry to discuss economic and other impacts of OSHA regulation of workplace smoking. Proposed consultant to comment on Federal OSHA proposal on workplace smoking.
- Tsutsui, Bruce
- Wall, Charles R. (PM VP & Assoc. Gen. Counsel, c. 1994)Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Philip Morris 1994-94 (may have been longer; this info was gleaned from documents); formerly worked for Shook, Hardy and Bacon.
- Waxman, Henry A. (U.S. Representative)(D-CA) Was chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in 1994.
- Weeks, David
- Wells, A. Judson (physical chemist)studied indoor air quality
- Wilson, James D.
- Witorsch, Philip, M.D. (ETS George Washington U., Industry "expert witness")Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, D.C., USA. Managing Principal, International Center for Toxicology and Medicine, Rockville, MD. Took as much as $60,000 from the tobacco industry between 1985 and 1995 to claim publicly there was no link between ETS and cancer.
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Washington Technica
Info on Group Inc.
I1!
May 31, 1990
Kay Thomas
Issues Analyst
Tobacco Institute
1875 I Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Dear Ms. Thomas:
Enclosed please find newspaper, newsletter, and magazine articles
with background information on Dr. Stanton Glantz. Also, please
find biographical and bibliographical material.
If you have any questions or comments, or if there is any other
information we can provide for you, please do not hesitate to
contact us.
Very truly
WASHINGTON TECHNICAL INFORMATION GROUP Inc.
Matt Bernstein
Enc.
2828 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 305 ° W~shington, D.C. 20007 • 202/333-8431 ° Facsimile
Number 202/965-4081
T10149-0754
2ND STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
PAGE 2
Copyright (c) 1990 The Times ~rror Company;
Los Angeles Times
May 24, 1990, Thursday, Home Edition
SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 6; Column i; Editorial Writers Desk
LENGTH: 471 words
HEADLINE: DEATH FROM A SMOKE RING;
PASSIVE SMOKING IS ONE OF TOP CAUSES
BODY:
The two leading causes of preventable deaths in the United States are smoking
and alcohol abuse. What's the third? The answer given by two medical researchers
at UC San Francisco is a shocker. Statistician Stanton Glantz and
cardiologist Dr. William Parmley say that passive smoking -- the smoke that
nonsmokers involuntarily inhale -- now ranks as the third leading cause of
avoidable fatal diseases.
In remarks to the World Conference on Lung Health in Boston, Glantz
attributed 32,000 annual deaths from heart disease to second-hand smoke. The
Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, reports that passive smoking causes
3,000 cases a year of usually fatal lung cancer. Preventable deaths from
unwanted exposure to tobacco smoke thus exceed the combined toll of accidental
deaths from falls, drowning, fire, choking and poisons.
The EPA is getting ready to declare environmental tobacco smoke a known
carcinogen. But what Glantz and Parmley have also found is that passive smoking
is responsible for at least 10 times as many deaths from heart disease as deaths
from lung cancer. The risk appears to be especially great in the home. Glantz
says the evidence from numerous studies indicates that nonsmokers who live with
smokers have a 20% to 30% higher risk of dying from heart disease than do other
nonsmokers.
Scientists are now beginning to understand exactly how smoking affects the
heart, blood and arteries to produce increased risk of heart disease. According
to Glantz, carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke binds with hemoglobin in the blood,
reducing its capacity to carry vital oxygen. Smoking also reduces the ability of
the heart's cells to convert oxygen to adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, a
chemical that provides the heart with energy. Smokers' hearts are forced to work
harder and less efficiently. What studies now indicate is that passive smoking
produces similar harmful results. Those results can be measured; nonsmokers
exposed to second-hand smoke are unable to exercise for the same length of time
as nonsmokers who are not so exposed.
What's to be done? The government cannot, of course, set standards in the
home to try to protect nonsmokers from harm by smokers. But stricter separation
of smokers from nonsmokers in public places certainly can and should be
enforced. At the same time, government can mount a continuing campaign in the
schools and through public service announcements and the like to alert everyone
TI0149-0755
tO the perils of second-hand smoking. Smokers often insist on their "rights."
But there is no right to make others sick unto death with second-hand smoke.
It's become clearer than ever that smoking isn't simply a matter of
self-destruction, but a public-health menace. The mortality statistics for
tens of thousands of nonsmokers have put that conclusion beyond dispute.
TYPE:
Editorial
T!0149-0756
PAGE 4
3RD STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1990 Chicago Tribune Company;
Chicago Tribune
May 21, 1990, Monday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 3; ZONE: C
LENGTH: 661 words
HEADLINE: Passive smoking, higher heart disease risk linked
BYLINE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK
BODY:
Non-smokers who live with smokers have a 20 percent to 30 percent higher risk
of dying from heart disease than do other non-smokers, a researcher said Sunday.
"Passive smoking causes heart disease, and the number of deaths due to heart
disease is 10 times the number due to cancer," said Stanton Glantz of the
University of California, San Francisco.
In remarks presented Sunday at the World Conference on Lung Health in Boston,
Glantz said research is beginning to show exactly how cigarette smoke alters the
heart, blood and arteries to increase the heart disease risk.
In his 1986 annual report on smoking and health, the U.S. surgeon general
concluded that passive smoking causes lung cancer in non-smokers. At that time,
the evidence was insufficient to link passive smoking with heart disease, the
report said.
Newer studies have changed that, Glantz said in a telephone interview.
"The evidence that passive smoking causes heart disease is stronger today
than the evidence was in 1986 that passive smoking caused lung cancer," Glantz
said.
Glantz's study follows one week after the Environmental Protection Agency
said it will ~oon declare environmental tobacco smoke a known carcinogen.
The EPA concluded that passive smoking causes 3,000 cases of lung cancer, a
usually fatal disease, per year. Glantz said passive smoking also causes 32,000
heart disease deaths per year.
"The heart disease deaths combined with the cancer deaths make passive
smoking the third leading cause of preventable death, behind smoking and
alcohol," he said.
Glantz is a researcher and statistician who conducts research in cardiology,
has written two textbooks on biostatistics and serves on the California State
Scientific Review Panel on toxic air contaminants. His collaborator in the
study, Dr. William Parmley, is a cardiologist, chief of the division of "
cardiology at University of California, San Francisco, and a past president of
the American College of Cardiology.
Ti0149-0757
(c) 1990 Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1990
The Tobacco Institute, which represents cigarette makers, said the surgeon
general had failed to find proof that passive smoking causes heart disease.
Brennan Dawson, a spokeswoman for the institute, said in a telephone
interview that there have been only three studies since the surgeon general's
1986 report, "and they continue to support the conclusions" that there is no
proven link between passive smoking and heart disease.
Glantz disagreed. "There are now ii studies of the effects of passive smoking
on heart disease deaths" in non-smokers, he said. "All but one the tobacco
industry funded show an increased risk." The individual studies show increased
risks of between 20 percent and 30 percent.
Furthermore, he said, "there's evidence from several areas that passive
smoking reduces the ability of the heart to obtain and profit from oxygen."
Carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke binds with hemoglobin in the blood,
reducing its capacity to carry oxygen, Glantz said.
The smoke also reduces the ability of cells in the heart to convert oxygen to
a chemical called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which provides energy to the
heart, he said.
"What you end up with is: The blood doesn't carry oxygen well. The heart
doesn't pump as well," he said. "And what oxygen gets to the heart isn't used as
well."
One consequence of that - which can be measured - is that people exposed to
second-hand smoke can't exercise as long, he said.
Cancer-causing agents in t~e smoke, especially a chemical called
benzo(a)pyrene, have been found to injure artery linings, he said. Such injuries
are one of the first steps in the development of life-threatening blood clots in
the coronary arteries that nourish the heart, he said.
Studies also have shown that blood platelets, which help blood clot, become
"stickier" and more likely to clot in non-smokers exposed to cigarette smoke. In
fact, non-smokers are much more sensitive to this effect than are smokers, he
said.
TERMS: PRODUCT; RESEARCH; CAUSE; REPORT; HEALTH; DISEASE; STATISTIC
T10149-0758
PAGE 6
4TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1990 The New York Times Company;
The New York Times
May 21, 1990, Monday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 19, Column 1; National Desk
LENGTH: 215 words
HEADLINE: Passive Smoke Harms Heart, Researcher Says
BYLINE: By The Associated Press
BODY:
Nonsmokers who live with smokers have a 20 percent to 30 percent higher risk
of dying from heart disease than do other nonsmokers, a researcher said
yesterday.
''Passive smoking causes heart disease, and the number of deaths due to heart
disease is 10 times the number due to cancer,'' said the researcher, Stanton
Glantz, a statistician at the University of California at~San Francisco.
In a presentation at the World Conference on Lung Health in Boston, Mr.
Glantz said research was beginning to show how cigarette smoke alters the heart,
blood and arteries to increase the risk of heart disease.
In his 1986 annual report on smoking and health, C. Everett Koop, then the
United States Surgeon General, concluded that passive smoking caused lung cancer
in nonsmokers. The evidence then was insufficient to link passive smoking with
heart disease, the report said.
Brennan Dawson, a spokeswoman for The Tobacco Institute, which represents
cigarette makers, said today, ''There have been only three studies since then,
and they continue to support the conclusions'' of the Surgeon General.
But Mr. Glantz disagreed. ''There are now 11 studies of the effects of
passive smoking on heart disease deaths,'' he said. ''All but one the tobacco
industry funded show an increased risk.''
SUBJECT: HEART; RESEARCH; SMOKING
NAME: GLANTZ, STANTON
Ti0149-0759
PAGE
5TH STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format.
Copyright (c) 1989 The Times Mirror Company;
Los Angeles Times
July 9, 1989, Sunday, Bulldog Edition
SECTION: Part i; Page 3; Column 5; Advance Desk
LENGTH: 1429 words
HEADLINE: PASSIVE SMOKING MAY KILL 46,000 A YEAR, STUDY FINDS
BYLINE: By PAUL RAEBURN, Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK
BODY:
Alice Trillin was 38 years old and in excellent health, she thought. Then
"this completely crazy thing" happened.
"I coughed and a tiny, tiny blood clot took me to get a chest X-ray. Ten days
later I had my lung removed."
Trillin had lung cancer, the kind smokers get.
But she had never smoked a cigarette.
The cause of her cancer remained a mystery until a doctor friend asked if her
parents had smoked. Yes, Trillin told him, they smoked heavily.
"Nobody had ever said anything about passive smoking. I hadn't worried about
the question much," she said.
Most scientists hadn't worried about the question much either, until studies
in recent years showed that passive smoking was causing 3,000 to 5,000 lung
cancer deaths a year in nonsmokers. Now a study estimates that the toll from
passive smoking, including deaths from heart disease and other cancers, may be
i0 times that.
Toll Could Be A6,000
Tobacco smoke in the home and workplace could be killing 46,000 nonsmokers
each year in the United States, the study concludes. That's 3,000 lung cancer
deaths, 11,000 from other cancers and 32,000 heart disease deaths.
That would make passive smoking the leading preventable cause of death after
alcohol and smoking itself, said Dr. Ronald M. Davis, director of the U.S.
Office on Smoking and Health. Smoking kills 390,000; alcohol, 120,000.
"No longer are we talking about runny nose or watery eyes or headache or
nausea, but a fatal disease," said Davis. "Which ups the ante, so to speak, for
passive smoking."
Passive smoKlng nas become the principal battleground for the tobacco
industry and its opponents in the 1980s. It is no longer merely a health issue,
but political and environmental. Cigarette pollution is fouling the air.
TI0149-0760
PA~E 8
.(C) 1989 Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1989
"We know that the indoor environment is far more polluted than the outdoor
environment," said James Repace of the Environmental Protection Agency
indoor-air program. "We've seen that again and again wherever we've looked all
over the United States."
Innocent Shouldn't Pay
Many people believe smokers have the right to smoke. But they also believe
that others shouldn't have to pay a price.
"When you talk about a~ involuntary risk, the society becomes much more
cautious," said University of California-San Francisco biomedical engineer
Stanton Glantz, an environmentalist and anti-smoking activist.
The new estimate is controversial. Researchers agree it is preliminary and
needs to be confirmed.
A tobacco industry consultant said the emphasis on passive smoking is
misplaced. "Environmental tobacco smoke is a smoke screen that is keeping us
from looking at the total problem, which is the quality of indoor air," said Dr.
David Weeks, president of Per-Med Corp., a health consulting firm in Boise, Ida.
"You take the tobacco smoke out of the air and you've still got the problem."
Many public health officials disagree.
The risk of tobacco smoke "is greater than the risk of radon gas is to
nonsmokers," said Repace. "We're talking maybe 40% greater. And if you're
talking about all the carcinogenic air pollutants that EPA regulates, it's 100
times greater."
EPA researchers in North Carolina say in a new internal report that
environmental tobacco smoke "is a major source of indoor air pollution and is
also the major combustion source contributing to total human exposure to
mutagens and carcinogens."
Threat to Industry
The passive smoking issue poses a serious threat to the tobacco industry. A
confidential opinion poll done for the industry in 1978, and leaked to
anti-smoking activists, showed passive smoking was "the most dangerous
development to the viability of the tobacco industry that has yet occurred."
"What the smoker does to himself may be his business, but what the smoker
does to the nonsmoker is quite a different matter," the pollsters concluded.
Concern about passive smoking escalated in 1986 with two reports: The U.S.
Surgeon General concluded that passive smoking doesn't merely raise the risk of
lung cancer -- it causes it. And the National Academy of Sciences said exposure
to tobacco smoke may raise the risk of lung cancer in nonsmokers 34%.
Difficult to Treat
Alice Trillin was lucky; she was cured. But lung cancer rema£ns one oz ~ne
most difficult cancers to treat. Few others will have her luck.
TI0149-0761
PAGE 9
(c) 1989 Los Angeles Times, July %, 1989
The link between passive smoking and lung cancer is based on four lines of
evidence, said Davis, whose Office on Smoking and Health prepares the Surgeon
General's reports on smoking.
First, tobacco smoke contains known cancer-causing agents. Second, nonsmokers
absorb smoke from the air; by-products can be measured in their blood. Third,
there's no safe level of exposure to smoke. Fourth, many studies show that
nonsmokers whose spouses smoke have a higher risk of lung cancer than nonsmokers
whose spouses don't.
42 States Have Restrictions
At the end of 1987, 42 states had imposed some restrictions on smoking in
public, more than double the number in the early 1970s, said Davis. Thirty-two
states restrict smoking in the workplace.
The nation's two largest air-quality agencies, the EPA and the California Air
Resources Board, are preparing assessments of the danger of passive smoking.
Both have included the new estimate in their calculations.
The estimate comes from a study published in the December issue of
Environment International by A. Judson Wells, a researcher in Wilmington, Del.,
and a volunteer with the American Lung Assn.
"In general, we don't think Dr. Wells is going to be off base at all," said
Margaret Jenkins, coordinator of the indoor air quality program for the
California Air Resources Board.
Heart Disease Worst
The paper's findings on lung cancer agree with other studies; its findings on
heart disease and other cancers are more speculative, but plausible, Repace
said. "The largest source of death from active smoking is, of course, heart
disease. We know the arteries of smokers get plugged up very rapidly, and it is
very possible that these same effects could occur in passive smokers."
Wells said he himself was surprised by his estimate. "When I first calculated
these numbers, they scared the hell out of me. I'd be the first to admit they're
wrong, if we can find out why they're wrong."
So far, no one has, although not everyone accepts Wells" estimate.
Weeks, the industry consultant, dismissed Wells' study, as he does concern
about passive smoking altogether. He believes passive smoking causes no risk,
but he doesn't think any of the data on the subject are very good.
Estimates Imprecise
Many researchers would agree that current estimates are imprecise.
But Repace answers Weeks this way: "Environmental tobacco smoke is tobacco
smoke. And tobacco smokeis known to cause 400,000 deaths a year. Here is a
known carcinogen to human beings. Are we to assume that low levels are
innocuous? The question is, what standard of proof you require before you take
public action?"
TI0149-0762
(c) 1989 Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1989
PAGE I0
The risk to a nonsmoker in a typical office is about the same as the risk for
a nonsmoker whose spouse smokes, he said. "In a typical office with good
ventilation, you're running about 250 times the maximumacceptable cancer risk
for environmental carcinogens in air or water or food."
Office Risk High
That is, among 100,000 workers, you'd expect 250 of them to die from lung
cancer caused by passive smoking. "And in the poorly ventilated office, it would
be four times as high," Repace said.
Occasional exposure in a bar, restaurant or car probably is not nearly as
great a risk as exposure in the home or the office, he said.
Most of the regulatory emphasis now is on curbing smoke in the workplace.
"It's one of the two most important places of exposure to tobacco smoke, the
other being the home," Davis said. "For somebody who doesn't have any smokers in
the home, the work site would be the most important place."
Even many smokers favor policies that curb the passive smoking risk.
Smokers Aware of Problem
According to the 1989 Surgeon General's report on smoking, 64% of smokers
believe their habit is hazardous to nonsmokers' health. Thirty-four percent of
smokers were bothered by other people's smoking.
The question for nonsmokers is how aggressively to avoid tobacco smoke.
"I'm sure one day's exposure isn't going to do you any harm," said Wells.
"But every little bit adds to what you've accumulated heretofore.
"Only the most sensitive individuals are going to die of passive smoking. The
problem is, we don't know who they are. It could be you. It could be me."
TYPE:
Wire
T|0~149-0763
