Tobacco Documents Online

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I By Patr~cia Reaney LONDON, Mar~ 9 (Reuters) - A row broke out on Monday over the dangers of passive smoking after British ~ewspaper stud the World Health Organisation (WHO) had suppressed a study whi~ showe~ su~ smoke did not cause ~ncer. Less than six months after scientific research showed non-smokers living with smokers had a 25 percent nsk of developing lung cancer, the Sunday Telegraph said the WHO deliberately withheld a 1 year study which found that environmental toba~ smoke was not dangerous. The sto~ re-ignited the debate over passive smoking and left the public even more ~fused 8bout whether "second-hand smoke" is dangerous or not British tobacco group B.A.T Industries Plc said the WHO stud~ confirmed that environmental tobacco smoke was not a cancer risk. "We welcome this new study ~ich confi~s what we and other scientists have long believed, that smoking may annoy some non-smokers, scien~ does not ~how that being around a smoker ~s a lung ~ncer risk," said Dr Chris Proctor, the head of s¢ien~ for B.A.T. He said in a statement that the research found that if there was any lung ~ncer risk in the air to non- smokers at all, it was too small to be quant~ed at any meaninCut level. But anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) accused B.A.T of using the data to dampen the impact of additional eviden~ on the ~anger of passive smoking te be published later thi~ week, ASH criticised the toba~ indust~ for drawing conclusions from unpublished ~ata and accused it of being desperate to play do~ the impact of su~ smoking. '~here are clear links be~een passive smoking an~ lung cancer, hea~ disease, re~pirato~ illnes~ in childre~ requiring hospitalisaticn, cot death, middle ear infection, asthma and many minor but wi~espreaU irritants," the group said. '~he toba~o lndust~ knows this repo~ i~ going to be ve~ ba~ for them, and this is an obvious spoiler. ~ey are geeing their retaliation in fi~t," it added. A Depa~ment of Nealth spokesman ¢onfi~ed that Britain's Scientific Commi~ee on To~ac~ a~d Health would publish resear~ later this ~ek. No other details were awilable. The Sunday Telegraph, ~ich said it had seen the ~$earch on ~even European nations ~mmissioned by the WHO, reposed the study ~ncluded that not only was there no link be~een passive smoking an~ lung ~ncer, but there could even be a protective effe~. '~he findings are ce~ain to be an emba~assment to the WHO, ~ich has ~pent years and vast sums anti-smoking and anti-tobacco ~mpaigns," the new~pa~er said. instead of revealing the results, the newspaper ~ai~ the WHO had produ~d only a summa~ of the findings in an internal The Geneva-based WHO tried to play do~ the ~ntrover~y, saying the full repo~ would be pubtishe~ ~n a scientific journal, According to the new~paper the research compared 650 lung ~ncer patie~t~ with 1 ,~2 healthy people ~o were maned to, lived, worked or grew up with smokers. '~he results are ~nsistent with there being no additional risk for a person living or wo~ing with a s~oker a~d could be consistent with passive smoke having a prote~ive effe~ against lung ~ncer," the ~ewspaper said. -'or related news, double click on one of the following codes: G] [GB] [HEAl [SCI] [BEV] [NEWS] [LEN] [RTRS] V1onday, 9 March 1998 16:18:19 {TRS [nFLLWG943L]