Tobacco Documents Online

8 , e Letter to the Editor (name of Publication) To the Editors H.L. Mencken might have been anticipating today's debate about smoking on the job and in public places when he wrote: "For every problem there is a solution that is simple, neat -- and wrong." New reports from federal and private experts show that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) may be the actual cause of poor indoor air quality in as few as 2 percent of all cases. These findings mean (city/county/state) (lawmakers/business managers) will accomtlish little by reducing or avan eliminating tobacco smoke in the workplace. Complaints of sore and watery eyes, headaches, allergies, asthma and general respiratory problems will persist. Even worse, there is the very real danger that a single-minded attack on ETS will permit a variety of established causes of poor indoor air quality to flourish. Privat• business leaders and government officials will be lulled into a false sense of complacency, naively assuming that they have "licked' TI DN 0009981

s the indoor air pollution problem by the "quick fix" of pinning the blame on tobacco smoke. How mgch of the blame now heaped on ETS is misplaced? The government's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reported recently that in the 203 major indoor air quality complaints it has examined, Just four -- or 2 percent -- were attributable to cigarette smoking. My firm, ACVA Atlantic, Inc., has inspected more than 27 million square feet of office space in 125 private and public buildings. We found tobacco smoke was the major contributing factor to air quality problems in only five of these buildings. These consistent findings make it increasingly clear that tobacco smoke is blamed for paor air quality simply because it is one of the few indoor air factors that we can see and smell. But high levels of ETS are nothing more than a symptom of poorly maintained and designed ventilation systems. ACVA investigations show improper attention to indoor air circulation is responsible in the majority of cases for the spread and breeding of infectious germs and allergenic dusts and spores - not to mention the circulation of fiberglass particles, asbestos fibers, and a host of other hazardous airborne particles undetectable,to the eye and TI DN 0009982

4 nose. True, cigarette smoke was often suspected as the guilty party of many of those who called in NIOSH and ACVA. But that appears to have been because few workplace managers were aware that scores of non-tobacco microorganisms can inflict symptoms similar to -- and much worse then -- those sometimes blamed on ETS. Under normal conditions with proper ventilation, tobacco smoke dissipates very quickly without a trace. In fact, this "disappearing act" helps confirm that the ventilation system in an indoor area is working properly. In the few cases where the smoke persists, the ventilation must be immediately suspect. The absence of tobacco smoke may actually. eliminate the one tell-Qtle "marker" we now have that a ventilation system is failing. Yours, Gray Robertson President, ACVA Atlantic, Inc. TI DN 0009983