Tobacco Documents Online

NEWS: & CO~T AIR QUALITY Bad News on Second-Hand Smoke For years, many epidemiologists have had a gut feeling that second-hand tobacco smoke can cause lung cancer and ocher respiracory diseases in nonsmokers, but they've been hesi- cant to label environmental tobacco smoke a clear-cut carcinogen. The reason? Almost ev- eryone is exposed to whiffs of cigarette smoke from cime to time, making ic hard for epidemi- oiogists to tease out any effects of secondary smoke from those of a host of ocher potential hazards. Last week, however, the gut feeling gained ascientific imprimacur. Anourside panel of scientisrs convened by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved crucial elements of a drafc review concluding that "pas- sive smoking" does indeed cause lung cancer. Final approval of the draft by EPA adminisrta- tor William Reilly is expected to come by De- cember, at which point second-hand smoke will be labeled a known human carcinogen. What the panel, the indoor-air committee of the EPA's Science Advisory Board, accepted ac its meeting in Crystal City, Virginia, is a better substantiated version of a draft it torpe- doed in April 1991. The new report, prepared by agency and contract researchers, fingers environmental tobacco smoke as the cause of between 2500 and 3300 lung cancer deaths a year in formersmokers and people who've never smoked. In addition, it blames such smoke for 150,000 co 300,000 lower respiratory cracc in- fections a year in children less than 18 months old. And it charges that second-hand smoke worsens asthma in some children. To fashion that indictment, admits Jen- nifer Jinot, an EPA health scientist who wrote part of the draft, she and her colleagues en- caged in some fancy statistical footwork. In their evaluation, she says, they ended up us- ing "tocal weight of evidence." Besides rely- ing on 30 epidemiological studies,, most of which found adverse effects, her team was persuaded by several suggesting that higher doses of secondary smoke cause more cases of lung cancer. Then, too, there was the chemi- cal reality that environmental smoke and the smoke inhaled by smokers share many of the same carcinogens. Consultants to the tobacco industry are unhappy, of course. The tobacco industry had dispatched no fewer than nine consultants to convince the board that the review is flawed- to no avail. Now these consultants charge that the agency sciencisrs' fancy footwork strayed our of bounds on several counts. "Environ- mental tobacco smoke daca have been mas- saged to an extraordinary extenc," says John Todhunter, a consultant ac Washington, D.C. - based SRS International, who criticized the rev iew on behalf of the Tobacco Institute. And even if the EPA's assessment is on carget, Todhunter stresses, the risk is relatively small compared to chat of other EPA-designated hu- man carcinogens. Scill, officials ac the Tobacco Inscicute cake a sanguine pose, saying thac they aren't wor- ried about the document's potential impact on regulation. "I don't chink ic will change the scheme of things," says Brennan Dawson, vice president of che Tobacco Institute. That's hardly what most health policy experts be- lieve, however. They say that once the report is finalized, its conclusions-parcicularly sec- ondary smoke's label as a known human car- cinogen-might force more widespread work- place regulacion of cobacco smoke by the Oc- cupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). "The EPA review will go a long way in giving OSHA che policical support it needs to do a standard," says Debra Janes, an OSHA health sciencist who is preparing a memoran- dum suggescing various options for regulating indoor-airquality in nonindustrial workplaces. The prospect of OSHA action may be lighc- ing a fire underZhe publicly unconcerned To- bacco Inscituce. Says Dawson, the institute is Smart move? EPA sizes up the risk. "analyzing new opcions." Could one be litiga- tion to block the report? She won't rule it out. Antismoking activists, meanwhile, are step- ping up their campaigns to rid public places of tobacco smoke. "We're spreading the news throughout the legal community," says John Banzhaf, direccor of Washington, D.C.-based Action on Smoking and Health, who predicts that ancismoking lawyers soon will feast on secondary smoke's beefed-up, bad-boy status. -Richard Stone EUROPE Frustrated E M B L Ch i ef Resi g ns You're head of a lab that's ranked second in its field in Europe, wich 3 years left in your contract-why not rest on your laurels and settle in for a quiet run to retirement? Not Lennart Philipson, director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. First he set before EMBL's 15 member staces an ambitious vision of the laboratory's future; then, when they balked at the cost, Philipson threw in the cowel, complaining of a"voce of no confidence." Philipson's friends say they aren't shocked by the news-he usually backs his strong opinions with equally forthright action, they say. But his decision to leave EMBL next April puts the lab's governing council in a fix: Candidates for the top EMBL job were never easy to find, and the acrimony sur- rounding Philipson's departure will make the headhunters' task doubly difficult. The row cencers on Philipson's 5-year plan to expand EMBL's budget by 15% to 20% above inflation. In particular, Philipson an- nounced more than 2 years ago that he wanted co add 10 staff scientists co EMBL's 20-person outstation in Grenoble. His goal? To ensure that EMBL cashes in on the boost to structural biology that should come from the 1994 open- ing of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in that city. A good idea in principle, agreed EMBL's overseers, but they've been debating the cost ever since. EMBL's budget rules demand unanimous agreement from the member states, and the council still had nor agreed to fund the project by its last meeting on 8 July. That was the last straw for Philipson. EMBL staff aren't panicking yet about Philipson's departure. But Thomas Graf, co- ordinator of EMBL's differentiation research program, warns that a replacement must be found quickly. "Not every decision can be taken by a committee," he says. One pressing issue is the rapid growth of EMBL's DNA sequence daca library, now doubling in size every I8 months. To reduce the drain or. EMBL's resources, there are plans to conver, the library into an independent Europear. Bioinformacics Institute-but it will take sen- sitive negotiations to win funding for tne project from the European Community. Philipson's hope is that EMBL's membe: states might actually react in a positive wa, to his sudden announcement. "I've done thL in order to precipitate a change in the budge principles," he says. His prescription: EMBL ' budgec should be agreed upon by a cwo-chirc majority vote, rather than by unanimity. Typ ca11y, Phiiipson is predicting dire consE quences if his call for change goes unheedec "It may take 10 years to build up a first-cia research center, but it may only take monci to destroy it," reads his resignationstatetner. Strong words, but with many ofEMBL's men. ber countries feeling the pinch of recessio: they may noc be enough. -Peter Aldho: ~ SCIENCE • VOL. 257 • 31 JULY 1992 2046458182