|
January 7, 2003 marks the 10th anniversary of the release of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) landmark report on secondhand smoke (SHS). With the powerful conclusion that secondhand smoke is a Group A, or known human, carcinogen, the EPA report helped spur the adoption of law and voluntary policies to protect nonsmokers from exposure to SHS.
The EPA report also became the target of a major, multi-million dollar disinformation campaign led by the tobacco industry. In June 1993, the industry filed a lawsuit in federal court in Greensboro, North Carolina requesting that the court declare the report to be "invalid." The tobacco industry filed this lawsuit despite the fact that the EPA did not issue any regulations pursuant to the report. As the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on December 11, 2002, the issuance of the EPA's report was not a "final action" by the agency; therefore, the industry lawsuit had to be dismissed.
On July 17, 1998, Judge William L. Osteen issued a ruling purporting to vacate the portions of the EPA report dealing with lung cancer among adults. See Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp., et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, et al., 4 F.Supp. 2d 435 (U.S.D.C. M.D. N.C. 1998). After his ruling, the Tobacco Control Resource Center issued an analysis explaining why Judge Osteen's opinion was in error. See http://tobacco.neu.edu/extra/hotdocs/osteenarticle.htm
The EPA appealed Judge Osteen's ruling. Oral arguments on the appeal were heard by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal on June 7, 1999. More than three and one-half years later, the court issued its opinion (Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp. et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, et al., 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 25290) vacating Judge Osteen's opinion and dismissing the case on January 10, 2003, pending a possible appeal.
Filing the lawsuit was not the only action Big Tobacco took to undermine public confidence in the EPA report. In August 1998, the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN) reported that the tobacco industry had paid 13 scientists a total of $156,000 to write letters to influential publications criticizing the 1993 EPA report.
As the Wall Street Journal reported in April 1998: "Determined to keep reports about secondhand-smoke dangers from mushrooming, the tobacco industry mobilized a counterattack in the mid-1980s to systematically discredit any researcher claiming perils from passive smoke." In December 1986, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issued a report concluding that secondhand smoke "is a cause of disease, including lung cancer" in otherwise healthy nonsmokers and that the "children of parents who smoke, compared with the children of nonsmoking parents, have an increased frequency of respiratory infections, increased respiratory symptoms, and slightly smaller rates of increase in lung function as the lung matures."
There have been many major developments regarding secondhand smoke since the issuance of the EPA report. Among these are the following:
June 1993 -- The U.S. Supreme Court votes 7 to 2 in favor of a prison inmate's lawsuit contending that his being forced to share a cell with a 5-pack-a-day smoker constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 113 S. Ct. 2475 (1993).
1994 -- After many cities and towns in California had enacted smoke-free ordinances, California passes a statewide law requiring restaurants to be smoke-free.
Throughout the 1990s, medical studies continued to demonstrate that exposure to secondhand smoke harms nonsmokers. In 1997, the California E.P.A. issued a report that found that secondhand smoke increases the incidence of middle ear infections and exacerbates asthma in children, contributes to low birthweight among infants and causes from between 1900 and 27,000 cases on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in the U.S. each year. The report also established secondhand smoke as a cause of lung cancer and heart attack and stroke.
In June 2002, a scientific working group consisting of 29 scientists from 12 countries, convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization unanimously concluded that secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer.
During the 1990s, studies that relied on actual tax data -- and not speculation about what restaurant or bar owners believe will happen in the future -- demonstrated lack of economic harm to restaurants and bars that are required to go smoke-free, contrary to the claims of tobacco companies.
1994 -- R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. runs full-page ads across the United States, disputing scientific research that links secondhand smoke with death and disease and criticizing the government passing laws to restrict smoking in public places as being "paternalistic."
October 1997 -- The tobacco industry agrees to settle a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of nonsmoking flight attendants harmed by exposure to on-the-job secondhand smoke aboard before the federal ban on smoking on flights took effect. Broin v. Philip Morris Companies, Inc. See 641 So. 2d 888. The tobacco industry agrees to pay $300 million to establish the Flight Attendants Medical Research Foundation and agreed that flight attendants harmed by secondhand smoke exposure aboard airlines can sue the tobacco companies regardless of statute of limitations issues. The companies also agree that individual actions can proceed with the burden of proof on the companies on the issue of whether secondhand smoke causes disease in nonsmokers. Thousands of such individual suits have since been filed.
January 1998 -- California's law requiring bars to be smoke-free takes effect.
November 5, 2002 -- By a 71-29% margin, Florida's voters approve a state constitutional amendment to require restaurants to be smoke-free.
November 27, 2002 -- Delaware's smoke-free law takes effect.
December 11, 2002 -- After 69 communities in Massachusetts have passed smoke-free local laws, the Boston Public Health Commission passes a law for smoke-free workplaces, including bars, effective May 5, 2003.
December 12, 2002 -- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirms a $1.4 million award on behalf of the family of an asthmatic man who died aboard an Olympic Airways flight when he wasn't moved away from the smoking section. Husain v. Olympic Airways, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 25470 (9th Cir. 2002).
December 18, 2002 -- New York City Council passes, by a 42-7 vote, a smoke-free ordinance that includes bars.
Since the 1993 EPA report, there has been an escalation in the number of lawsuits designed to protect nonsmokers in multi-unit dwellings from secondhand smoke that seeps in from a neighbor's unit. Similarly, there have been an increasing number of child custody cases in which one parent's smoking around a child has become an issue.
Former E.P.A. scientist James Repace has described secondhand smoke as the "toxic waste of tobacco combustion." Included in secondhand smoke are the following: acetone, acetic acid, aluminum, ammonia, arsenic, benzene, Benzo(a)pyrene, butane, cadmium, copper, carbon monoxide, DDT, dieldrin, formaldehyde, hexamine, hydrogen cyanide, lead, magnesium, methane, methanol, napthalene, nicotine, nitrobenzene, nitrous oxide phenols, polonium 210, silicon, silver, stearic acid, titanium, toluene, vinyl chloride and zinc.
-- 30 -- |