Tobacco Documents Online

Passive Smoke a Cause of Cancer, Panel Concludes , EPA Told Risk of Respiratory Rlness in Children Also Increased by Involuntary Exposure , By Michael Weisskopf wanUW0, Peat sun wraer six months off, to determine wheth- er ETS should be regulated in the workplace. "We are persuaded that evidence exists... that ETS does cause lung cancer in nonsmokers," said Morton Lippmann, a scientist who chairs the indoor air quality panel of the EPA's Science Advisory Board, summing up a two-day meeting here. Lippmann emphasized that the panel's judgment was tentative, based on its initial review of an EPA study that he said was "not fully developed." He called for further refinement of the data, saying EPA "should be able to make that case." The tobacco industry, which mounted a full-court press to chal- lenge the study as scientifically flawed, took heart in criticisms by individual panel members and their recommendation that the study be rewritten. "The science is so lack- ing, it's impossible to believe that the conclusions will hold up," said Brennan Dawson, a spokesman for the Tobacco Institute. But anti-smoking advocates viewed the panel's description of ETS as a human carcinogen as a catalyst for government regulation of smoking in workplaces. "An employer will no longer be able to justify unnecessarily expos- ing nonsomking employes to tobac- co smoke in the workplace without risking serious and substantial lia- bility," said Matt Myers, director of the Coalition on Smoking or Health. The 16-member panel was asked to review the EPA study because of controversy last May over its des- ignation of passive smoke as one of just a handful of substances known to be human carcinogens. That stu- dy also offered the first official es- timate of ETS's toll: 3,800 lung cancer deaths a year, the third larg- est cause after radon and direct smoking. Another controversial finding . ;A panel of independent science advisers to the Environmental Pro- tection Agency concluded yesterday thnt involuntary exposure to tobac- cd smoke causes lung cancer in non- smokers and increases risk of res- pikatory illness in children. :The decision is expected to so- li4ify plans by the EPA to rank en- vixomnental tobacco smoke (ETS) as a known human carcinogen, a move that would have major impli- cations for employers nationwide. Tle Labor Department is waiting fdr a final EPA assessment, at least gSSEL0t0SZ was that smoking parents, especial- ly mothers, expose their children to higher rates of bronchitis and pneu- monia in their early years. Although similar warnings were issued in 1986 by the U.S. surgeon general and National Academy of Sciences, the conclusions of a re- gulatory body empowered to pro- tect the public health were seen as having more practical significance. The agency has no power to reg- ulate indoor air pollutants, including tobacco smoke. But designating ETS as a human carcinogen could be important for the Labor Depart- ment's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has agreed in a court suit to consider controls on ETS and is awaiting EPA's verdict. The findings are also the center- piece of a policy guide EPA is pre- paring for governmental and pri- . ~. ~ .. . ~. .: '+.: • r .. . mended mended that involuntary exposure be eliminated "wherever possible" by prohibiting smoking or segregat- ing smokers. With the trend toward smoke- free workplaces growing nation- wide, the tobacco industry lobbied intensely to influence the choice of panel members and their review process, according to EPA officials. A dozen industry witnesses faulted EPA's methodology, criti- cizing its averaging results of sev- eral epidemiological studies, failure to test laboratory animals, reliance on foreign data and omission of con- trary information. "This is a classic case where the' evidence is not all that strong. Any study can be found to have flaws," Lippmann said. But he said the "weight of the evidence" supports the general conclusion that ETS causes lung cancer in nonsmokers