Tobacco Documents Online

11-08-90 03:42 PM FRDM BURS9N MARSTEEIEP, P02 Executive News SVc. APa 11/08 1456 EPA-Tobacco Lobby Copyright, 1990. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. sy PAUL RAESURN AP Science Editor NEW YORK (AP) -- Six of the 16 members of a newly appointed SnvironmentalProtection Agency panel considering the health risks of aecond-hand ciqarette smoke have ties to a tobacco industry research organisation, documents show. A seventh member of the panel was appointed upon the recommendation of the philip Morris tobacco company, EPA officials said. "They've stacked the deck with people who have close ties to the tobacco industry," said Dr. Alan Slum, a founder of the anti-smoking group Doctors Ought to Care. "It's pathetic." "We were concerned about the appearance of conflict of interest," said Donald Barnes, staff director of the KPA's scientific advisory board. But he said the link between the panel members and the tobacco organization "does not cause any question to be raised about their technical capabilities." The panel's task is to review the scientific accuracy and objectivity of two forthcoming EPA reports on the health effects of passive smoking. Six members are connected with the Center for Indoor Air Research of Linthicum, Md., according to the center's publications. The center is financed by Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Corp., three of the nation's largest tobacco companies. Its board of directors is made up of employees of those companies, said Pamela Phillips, an administrator at the center. The chairman of the EPA passive-smoking panel, Morton Lippmann of New York University, is on the science advisory board of the tobacco industry center. Lippmann and another member of the EPA panel, Dr. Jonathan Samet of the University of New Mexico, helped devise the center's research agenda. Samet and three other members of the EPA panel are listed as "pegr reviewere" for the center. They help determine which research projects the center supports. Yet another member of the EPA panel, Delbert Eatough of Brigham Young University, receives research funds from the center. A seventh member of the panel, Geoffrey Kabat of the American Nealth Foundation, had been recommended by Philip Morris, EPA officials said. Kabat said, "I have no direct contact with the tobacco industry at all, and I certainly don't see myself as being an agent of theirs in any respect." The makeup of the EPA panal aroused controversy when it was reported last month that the agency had dismissed Dr. David

11-08-90 03:42 fM FRfl4 BURSON MARSTELLER P03 Burns from the panel after the tobacco industry lobbied to get rid of him. Burns, of the University of California, San Diego, was the author of the U.S. Surgeon General's report on passive smoking and is regarded by his colleagues as a leading authority on passive smoking. He was reinstated to the EPA panel after his dismissal was disclosed. Lippmann said he didn't see any problem working with the EPA and with the tobacco research center. "it can always raise questions," he said. "I don't view it as any conflict." Lippmann said three of his colleagues at New York University's Institute of Environmental Medicine, where Lippmann works, have received grants from the tobacco industry group. The largest grant was for $250,000, he said. Samet's office said he was on vacation and couldn't be reached. Eatough, who has received research funds from R.J. Reynolds as well as the Center for Indoor Air Research, said the receipt of such money does not compromise his objectivity. "I'm sure that it does raise questions in many people's minds," he said. But he said he is not constrained by the tobacco research funds, "What we do is what we do, and we're free to go down what seem the reasonable roads to go." The scientists serving as peer reviewers for the Center for Indoor Air Research are Michaei Lebowitz of the University of arisona, Jan A.J. stolwijk of Yaie University and James €. Woods of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Woods didn't return a call to his office. Lebowits's office said he was out of the office until Nov. 16. Stolwijk said, "I review grant applications they send me. I don't have anything else to do with them."