Tobacco Documents Online

Copyright 1993 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., All rights reserved. ABC NEWS SHOW: WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WITH PETER JENNINGS JUNE 22, 1993 LENGTH: 3887 words BODY: ANNOUNCER: From ABC, this is World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, reporting tonight from Washington. PETER JENNINGS: Our second story is also from Washington. The tobacco industry is on the counterattack here. Six months after the Environmental Protection Agency issued a devastating report on secondhand smoke - just breathing in someone else's smoke, said the EPA, causes thousands of cases of lung cancer in nonsmokers every year - the tobacco industry has gone to court. As ABC's Bettina Gregory reports, a coalition of tobacco farmers and cigarette makers claim that the EPA report is based on faulty science and should be ignored. HOSTESS: Smoking or nonsmoking? CUSTOMER: Nonsmoking. BETTINA GREGORY: The trend toward bans on smoking has been accelerating ever since January when former EPA administrator William Reilly declared secondhand smoke a human carcinogen. Smoking has been banned in the state capital of California and at some universities, restaurants, and airports. Today the tobacco industry fought back. It sued the EPA, claiming the government ignored scientific evidence and manipulated data to conclude environmental tobacco smoke, known as ETS, causes cancer. STEVE PARRISH, PHILIP MORRIS, USA: For this substance the science does not support the claim that environmental tobacco smoke is harmful to nonsmokers. BETTINA GREGORY: The industry claims the EPA did not consider two major 1992 studies which showed nonsmoking spouses of smokers did not increase their risk of lung cancer. Despite those studies, the current EPA administrator agrees with her predecessor that secondhand smoke is dangerous. CAROL BROWNER, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, it's the agency's view that secondhand smoke can cause health problems. The agency undertook a study. We stand by that study. BETTINA GREGORY: The EPA says secondhand smoke causes 3,000 cases of lung N cancer in nonsmokers every year. Nevertheless, the tobacco industry claims the EPA's O position on secondhand smoke is based on politics, not science. [SU] But sources N at the EPA say the tobacco industry's lawsuit is a tactic to stop domestic ~ cigarette sales from declining as smoking is banned in more and more places. r Bettina Gre o ABC News Washin ton ' ~ W