Pubdate: Mon, 20 Jul 1998
Source: Seattle Times (WA) 
Contact:  
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/ 
Author: Joan Biskupic, The Washington Post

OFFICIALS SAY THEY'LL FIGHT TO SAVE BANS ON SMOKING

WASHINGTON - Government officials say there is no turning back from today's
widespread bans on smoking at work, in restaurants and on airplanes, despite
a federal judge's decision that a government report declaring secondhand
smoke causes cancer was seriously flawed.

Ruling in a lawsuit brought by cigarette makers, U.S. District Judge William
Osteen Sr. of North Carolina said the influential 1993 Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) report stemmed from faulty methods and failed to
demonstrate the link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.

The scathingly worded opinion issued Friday accused the agency of committing
to an anti-tobacco conclusion before the research began and ignoring
evidence that contradicted its premise. While the EPA was not the first
agency to target environmental smoke, its 1993 finding that smoke was as
dangerous as radon or benzene quickly made it a catalyst for tougher smoking
prohibitions. Many state and local governments, as well as private building
owners, instituted bans on smoking inside offices, stadiums and restaurants.

"No one wants to go back to smoking on airplanes, to smoking in restaurants.
No one wants to go back to pollution indoors," Secretary of Health and Human
Services Donna Shalala said yesterday on "Fox News Sunday."

She and other officials said they would review the judge's ruling.

"Anyone who's had a cold that's been in a room with a smoker, from a
common-sense point of view, knows that anything that pollutes the air makes
their breathing ability worse. So there is science there. What the
relationship is between that and the EPA rules, we'll have to look at
carefully," she said.

"This country has fundamentally become a nation of . . . people who believe
it is inappropriate to have to be in a place where they have to breathe
tobacco smoke," Matthew Myers, executive vice president and general counsel
of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said yesterday.

A lawyer for cigarette maker Philip Morris said the ruling could become an
obstacle to people who try to sue tobacco companies for lung cancer, heart
disease or other ailments that they claim were caused by secondhand smoke.

"They have to prove that their injuries were in fact caused by secondhand
smoke," said attorney Michael York, "and the EPA study has been a
cornerstone of lawsuits."

While private studies had found secondhand smoke to increase the risk of
cancer, the EPA's designation of environmental tobacco smoke as a carcinogen
immediately increased political pressure for localities and states to act
against secondhand smoke. The EPA estimated "passive smoking" was
responsible for about 3,000 lung cancer deaths a year.

State governments also were spurred by a 1994 Occupational Safety and Health
Administration proposal that smoking be banned in every workplace, as well
as states' own studies and those by nongovernmental groups such as the World
Health Organization that found secondhand smoke a serious danger.

About 63 percent of the more than 100 studies of the health consequences of
passive smoking found it harmful, although not all found that it led to
cancer, according to a review of the studies two months ago in the Journal
of the American Medical Association.

In the lawsuit brought in 1994, cigarette makers claimed the EPA action had
prompted numerous government and private efforts to restrict indoor smoking
in a way that financially harmed the industry. Filed by Philip Morris, R.J.
Reynolds and groups representing growers, distributors and marketers, the
lawsuit claimed the EPA manipulated scientific studies and ignored accepted
scientific and statistical practices.

In his ruling, Osteen agreed, saying the EPA failed to follow standard
scientific methods and procedures. He also said, "there is evidence in the
record supporting the accusation that EPA `cherry picked' its data" to reach
the desired conclusion.

EPA officials said yesterday they are likely to appeal. They earlier had
argued the judge lacked authority to review the agency's rule-making process
and that the procedures used in the study were valid.

"The decision is disturbing," EPA Administrator Carol Browner said
yesterday. "We believe the health threats to children and adults from
breathing secondhand smoke are very real."

Robert Kline, director of the Tobacco Control Legal Clinic at Northeastern
University law school, contended the ruling would not affect the ongoing
tobacco wars because other studies have confirmed the EPA findings.

"Enough people recognize that secondhand smoke is dangerous," he said. "It's
going to be hard to put the genie back in the bottle."

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Checked-by: Melodi Cornett