The Environmental Protection Agency
jiggered the facts to push its notion that
passive smoke causes cancer. The EPA's
dishonesty was recently laid bare in court.
But this was too late for thousands of
businesses and towns that responded to the
EPA's junk science by passing anti-smoking
measures.
In '93, the EPA released a report on
secondhand smoke. It claimed that evidence
showed that environmental tobacco smoke, or
ETS, is a Group A carcinogen. Secondhand
smoke causes cancer in humans, said the EPA.
Highly respected scientists questioned the
EPA's findings. But the big-government crowd
and health storm troopers gleefully waved the
report in lawmakers' faces. They demanded
that something be done.
Soon, airlines, offices, restaurants and
even bars declared smoking verboten. Smokers
effectively became lepers. All based on bad
science.
Tobacco companies sued. The result? U.S.
District Judge William Osteen issued his
92-page ruling against the EPA on July 17.
Some of its findings:
* "EPA failed to comply with the
procedural requirements set forth by
Congress."
* "EPA failed to comply with the
requirements" of the Radon Research Act,
which it used to conduct its ETS research.
* The EPA's indoor-air quality commission
"did not include individuals from
industry or representatives from more than
one state," as required by law.
* "Using its normal methodology and
its selected studies, EPA did not demonstrate
a statistically significant association
between ETS and lung cancer. . . . Instead,
EPA changed its methodology to find a
statistically significant association."
* "EPA began drafting a policy guide
recommending workplace smoking bans before
drafting the ETS Risk Assessment."
* "Rather than reach a conclusion
after collecting information, researching,
and making findings, EPA categorized ETS as a
'known cause of cancer' in 1989."
* The EPA's "administrative record
contains glaring deficiencies."
* "EPA publicly committed to a
conclusion before research had begun."
* The EPA "adjusted established
procedure and scientific norms to validate
the agency's public conclusion, and
aggressively utilized the (Radon) Act's
authority to disseminate findings to
establish a de facto regulatory scheme
intended to restrict plaintiffs' products and
to influence public opinion."
* "EPA disregarded information and
made findings on selective information. . . .
(The EPA) failed to disclose important
findings and reasoning, and left significant
questions without answers."
In short, the EPA lied.
How do you go back and undo what the EPA
did? You can't. The myth is enshrined. The
big lie is fact.
Even with this callous disregard for the
truth, the Environmental Propaganda Agency
still found that the relative risk associated
with ETS and lung cancer is 1.19 - far below
the accepted minimal standard of 3 to 4.
For comparison, the relative risk of
premature death associated with drinking
three cups of coffee per week is 1.3.
Drinking whole milk and lung cancer? 2.14.
No word yet on the health risks of passive
drinking of coffee or milk. But give the EPA
some time.
Copyright © 1998 Steven
J. Milloy.
All rights reserved on original material.
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