Tobacco Documents Online

f . LEXINGTONi HERALD-LEADER - DATE': MONDAY *June * 10 , * 19'91 . PAGE': Al EDITION': FINAL SECTION: MAIN NEWS LEI+IGTH!: MEDIUM SOURCE: By Clint Riley Herald-Leader staff writer *SECONDHAND*SMOKE*ST[1DY CHALLENGED AT UK Sure, smoke gets in your eyes, but just how it affects the rest of'your. ~ body is still a subject of heated debate. A recent federal study that suggests 53,000 people die each year from secondhand cigarette smoke is being challenged by a leading researcher at the University of Kentucky. Some other researchers around the:country agree that secondhand cigarette! smoke is dangerous, but they question whether the figures from the study are accurate. Dr. John Diana, director of UK"s Tobacco and Health Research Institute, said' cigarette smoke could not be viewed as the sole cause of deaths cited in the study. Other pollutants might also play a role, he said. "There is no question that environmental tobacco smoke is an irritant,"' Diana said. But, he said, "the scientific community has not established with clarity and conviction that there is truly healthirisks resulting from environmental tobacco smoke." Diana's position is similar to that a~diopted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which commissioned but doesinpt endorse the study. The EPA does not even, want to call the 200-page document a, "report." Instead, anEPA official called the study "a, collection of individually authored papers." 'Ehough to be worried' Other researchers and medicali doctors said, however, that they agreed with the study's suggestion that enough evidence exists to prove passive smokingiis a healithithreat. "There is absolutely enough there to be:worried," said'Dr. Thomas Chalmers, a physician at the Veterans Af'fairs Hospital in Boston. Chalmers was chairman of'the National Academy of Sciences committee that lookedl at the quality of air in airplane cabins. The committee's report helped the effort to restrict smoking on domestic flights. "We came to the conclusion there was only one threat to health in airplane cabins, and that was passive smoking," said Chalmers, a former cigarette smoker. "I came out convinced that passive smoking is dangerous," he said. Dr. William Weintraub, an associate professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, agreed with Chalmers about the danger of,passive smoking. But Weintraub, Chalmers, Dianaland the EPA all agree that the numbers in the study are suspect. For examnple:, they question the validity of the study's estimate of 37,0010 heart-disease deaths a year because of*secondhand*smoke.* ~"I do not know where those numbers came from," said Diana, who does not N tr d i s y. nu accept research money for the institute from the tobacco questioned chapters, Stanton Glantz and Dr. William, Parmley of the University ~ of'California-San Francisco, stand by their findings. M.i ''Room f or work' C11 Glantz said the death estimates and the rest of their findings had been (Q endorsed by scientific reviewers chosen by the EPA. ~ The findings in the study support other studies that indicate*seccndha!nd* *smoke*is dangerous, Glantz said. "The evidence we have on passive smoking is much stronger than the evidence we have on most environmental toxins," Glantz said. "There is room for work. But in terms of having enough information to justify remedial actions for ~ th e Despite the skepticism of some researchers, the co-authors of

matters of public health there is more than enough evidence already." Glantz contends it is time to~safeguard people!from*secondhand*smoke. *Another expert, however, says more research is needed. Robert Axelrad, director of the EPA's indoor air division, said there had. not been enough research on*'secondhand*smoke,*especially its effect on the heart, for the EPA to release the study as its own. If the study is ever released,, Axelrad said, it will most likely not include the death estitmates. "It was totally inappropriate for these numbers to be linked to the EPA in any way," Axelrad saidi. The study was intended to be used by people studyingisecondhand tobaccoo smoke, Axelrad said. Even though the study was not releasedito the public, some of'the final draft versions with EPA markings were distributed to scientific reviewers and' tobacco industry officiaas.Axelrad said that was a mistake on the part of one of'his staff members. "'Basically, he put a Cover on it that wasni't really right. He didni't putt the proper disclaimers on it, Axelrad sai& "He called it a final clearance draft andibasically just screwed up." 'Call it a frog' Glantz said the EPA wanted him tolhelp write a "report" and he rejected the. agency''s excuses. "If you take a document and put a cover on it with a bunch of chapters and issue it, what would'you call it?," Glantz said. "Maybe we should call it a frog." Anti-smoking advocates say the EPA is not releasing the study because of more than the need for additional research. The groups, Doctors Ought to Care and~Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights,, accuse the EPA of not releasing the study because of pressure from the tobacco industry. "I can tell you that it is somewhat of concern to us that the cigarette companies have had as much to do with the process," said Julia Carol, associate director for Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. "We do need to know the truth about heart disease," Carol said. "I'm almost afraid to know the truth. This is turninglintola real bad substance that I didn't even know was that bad," she said. On the other hand, a Kentucky tobacco official is not very worried about a study that lin,ks*secondhand*smoke*with health risks. "Every time a report comes out it has some impact," said Danny McKinney, chief executive officer of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association based in Frankfort. "Reports come out all the time saying so many people died for different reasons," he said. "If you add them all up, we all died several years ago."