| A BREATH OF FRESH AIR IN SUPPORT OF SMOKE-FREE WORKPLACES |
| Whose Rights?
Smokers are people. Smoking is a non-essential activity. There is a difference. Smoke-free laws do not ban smokers from restaurants and bars any more than noise bylaws ban owners of car stereos. Smoke-free laws remove only tobacco smoke from the workplace, not people. Tobacco smoke has been classified by the National Toxicology Program as a Class A Carcinogen in the same category as mustard gas, arsenic and asbestos.1 A Class A Carcinogen is a substance known to cause cancer in humans. The hospitality industry stands alone as the last workplace permitting unprotected exposure to a Class A Carcinogen. Freedom of speech includes no entitlement to shout "BOMB" for personal amusement in a crowded airport. Elective participation in risk-taking sports and freedom to consume legal products include no exemption from harming others. Legislation to eliminate workplace exposure to tobacco smoke parallels laws protecting workers from any other workplace hazards, and business owners enjoy no freedom of choice whether to comply with city and federal laws regulating workplace safety. In 2002 the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board accepted Heather Crowe's claim for workplace injury from secondhand smoke. Ms. Crowe has never smoked. After forty years of waitressing in smoky restaurants, she has a fist-sized inoperable lung tumour. Since 1986 the WSIB reports five filed claims for secondhand smoke workplace injury; three have been accepted.2 Marlene Sharp proved in an Australian court her laryngeal cancer was due to workplace exposure of others' smoke.3 Health Consequences of Exposure to Secondhand Smoke The global medical community unanimously agrees on the harm caused by unprotected exposure to tobacco smoke, a cocktail of 4,000 chemicals, 50 of which cause and/or promote cancer such as benzene, absorbed through the skin and a known cause of leukemia. The tobacco-friendly report issued by James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat followed 118,094 adults from 1959 to 1998 and was initially funded by a grant from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, an organization managing funds from the Proposition 99 California state cigarette tax. After the program's scientific, peer-review panel ceased funding for this project, Enstrom sought out and ultimately received, a grant for $425,000 from the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR), an organization created and funded by Lorillard Tobacco, Philip Morris Tobacco and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.4 When CIAR was dismantled as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, Enstrom applied directly to Philip Morris. 5 The Canadian Medical Association is clear about its policy position on secondhand smoke: "The CMA recommends that smoking be prohibited in all enclosed workplaces and public areas. It also recommends that all levels of government enact smoke-free legislation." 6 The World Health Organization 7, the Environmental Protection Agency 8 and Health Canada 9 all confirm secondhand smoke causes cancer and other life threatening and life-altering diseases including cardiovascular disease and emphysema. In 1998 Judge William Osteen, who has a public record of tobacco support, struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's designation of secondhand smoke as a Class A Carcinogen. In a unanimous decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2002, the Class A Carcinogen designation of secondhand smoke by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was upheld and Judge Osteen's conclusions were vacated. 10 The Boffetta et al. study is often misrepresented when the claim is made that the World Health Organization concluded secondhand smoke poses no health risks because no association was found in one study whose numbers were too small to be considered statistically significant between childhood exposure to secondhand smoke and lung cancer risk. An irrelevant statement since children are not typically employed in bars, casinos and bingo halls, this claim neglects to mention children's exposure to secondhand smoke was not the focus of this case-control study on the effects of secondhand smoke on lung cancer risk in European populations, conducted over seven years by 12 research centres in 7 European countries under the leadership of the World Health Organization's cancer research branch, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The tobacco industry attempted to undermine the results of this study, as addressed in the official statement from WHO/IARC who leave no doubt about their conclusions: "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer. Do Not Let Them Fool You." 11 The argument is sometimes made that there are other substances "more dangerous than" tobacco smoke. Is jumping from the twentieth floor of a high rise any more dangerous than jumping from the tenth floor? Both have the same results, although admittedly one will not take as long before the consequences become evident. Researchers: Backgrounds and Realities In 1990 Geoffrey Kabat of the Enstrom/Kabat tobacco friendly-report was reported as saying "I have no direct contact with the tobacco industry at all, and I certainly don't see myself as being an agent of theirs in any respect."12 A search on the Philip Morris website reveals Geoffrey Kabat's name mentioned as a resource and/or contact on 6,062 documents, including one from 1983.13 John Luik is a doctor of philosophy, not medicine, who steadfastly claims in media interviews that secondhand smoke poses minimal health risks. John Luik says he does not smoke. At a Fraser Institute (Vancouver) lecture in 1999 he admitted he is on the tobacco payroll.14 This teacher of business ethics was dismissed from his post at Nazarene College in Winnipeg for fraudulently claiming a Ph.D. he had not yet earned. He also claimed he had worked full time at the University of Manitoba and taught three graduate courses . He has never worked at the University of Manitoba and one of the graduate courses he claims to have taught never existed. His former Dean of Humanities at Brock University, Cecil Abrahams, told a CBC interviewer " I certainly would not trust anything John Luik says because he must be the worst case of fraud I had come across and I've been an administrator at universities for a long period of time." 15 A research professor at Simon Fraser University, Theodor Sterling received $5 million from the tobacco-funded Council for Tobacco Research between 1973 and 1990. 16 The "ventilation solution" promoted from this tobacco-funded policy is used by the tobacco industry to distort science and confuse decision-makers into believing expensive, ineffective, unregulated and unmonitored ventilation systems protect workers from the Class A Carcinogens present in tobacco smoke exposure. The only expense for special equipment for a smoke-free establishment is a sign advising tobacco smoke is not permitted. James Repace, M.Sc. (Physics) was a member of the Surgeon General's National Advisory Panel on Smoking and Health from 1987-89, has been a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Panel on Tobacco or Health since 1987 and from 1994-2000 he was a member of the Scientific Peer-Review Panel at the University of California. He worked as a Science Policy Analyst for 19 years with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was awarded the Surgeon General's Medallion for his work on secondhand smoke. While employed by the EPA in 1980, Mr. Repace co-authored a paper published in the journal Science which attracted global interest by identifying secondhand smoke as a major source of indoor air pollution and the greatest source of population exposure to respirable particulate air pollution. With Dr. Martin Jarvis, OBE, Professor at University College, London (England) Medical School, he developed the first equations for determining levels of ambient secondhand smoke nicotine by measuring the nicotine metabolite, cotinine, in the blood, urine and saliva of nonsmokers. He was able conclusively to calculate dose-response equations relating those levels to nonsmokers' lung cancer and heart disease mortality. Tobacco apologists have tried to discredit this work by claiming similar cotinine readings can be obtained following ingestion of vegetables from the solanaceous family (which contain trace quantities of nicotine) such as eggplant and tomatoes. Dr. Jarvis addressed this in the British Medical Journal, saying "it would be necessary to eat the equivalent of some 90 kg tomatoes a day to give rise to the cotinine concentrations seen in children where two or more family members smoked". 17 In an editorial for the American Council on Science and Health, Elizabeth Whelan Sc.D., M.P.H. said “The call for a smoke-free environment in public places citywide is commendable… ETS [tobacco smoke] caused irritation of the eyes, nose and respiratory tract and aggravated preexisting asthma. Surely that is enough of a reason to justify the protection of all workers". 18 Stanton Glantz, Ph.D. has been a Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) since 1987, having completed a Ph.D. from Stanford in 1973 in Applied Mechanics Engineering Economic Systems followed by post-doctoral studies in Cardiology (1975) and Cardiovascular Research (1977). Among his dozens of merit and service awards, Dr. Glantz received UCSF Chancellor's Award for Public Service (1997), American Society of Addiction Medicine Award (1998) and the Flight Attendants' Medical Research Institute Distinguished Professor Award (2002). Dr. Glantz authored The Cigarette Papers in 1994, written following the anonymous delivery of 4,000 pages of formerly secret tobacco documents to his UCSF office. Dr. Glantz lobbies relentlessly for tobacco law reform. 19 Smoke-Free Bad for Only One Business: The Tobacco Business There is only one business that is harmed by smoke-free laws: the tobacco business, a conclusion well documented in their own files. "Smoking restrictions have been estimated this year alone to have decreased Philip Morris profits by $40 million." 20 "Seven billion fewer cigarettes, that's 350 million packs of cigarettes. At a dollar a pack, even the lightest of workplace smoking restrictions is costing this industry $233 million a year in revenue. How much more will it cost us with far more restrictive laws?" 21 In the year following New York's smoke free legislation the New York State Liquor Authority awarded 1,416 new licenses in 2003 in New York City, 55 more than the 1,361 issued in 2002. Data from the city's Department of Finance shows the money spent in New York bars and restaurants has increased: from April 2003 to January 2004, and the city collected $17.3 million in tax payments from bars and restaurants, a rise of $1.4 million over the same period a year earlier. An average of 164,000 people were employed in restaurants and bars in 2003, the highest number in a decade. 22 Radioactive Tobacco Smoke Did you know tobacco smoke is radioactive? The tobacco industry have known this since 1980. Scientists advised sales executives the use of a more expensive fertilizer would reduce and possibly eliminate altogether the presence of radioactive lead and polonium. Sales over safety prevailed. " Radioactive lead and radioactive polonium are present in tobacco and smoke ...the recommendation of using ammonium phosphate instead of calcium phosphate is probably a valid but expensive point." 23 The University of Iowa Cancer Centre say: "cigarette smoke also contains radioactive lead and polonium, enough to result in a radiation exposure of 1300 mrem/year to a 1.5 pack a day smoker. Each cigarette smoked can also be equated to one chest x-ray, and a non-smoker living with a smoker may receive the equivalent of 12 chest x-rays per year as a result of second-hand smoke". 24 One justification for unrestricted and unprotected exposure to tobacco smoke begs special attention, as specified in a marketing paper submitted to British American Tobacco, the parent company of Canada's largest tobacco company, Imperial Tobacco: "This last point, a brutally realistic one, implies that with the general lengthening of the expectation life, we really need something for people to die of. In substitution for the effects of war, poverty and starvation, cancer as the disease of the rich developed countries, may have some predestined part to play. The argument is not one obviously the tobacco industry could use publicly." 25 Smoke-free lowers overheads: fire insurance premiums decrease, cleaning and replacement (for burned carpeting/furniture) costs are reduced, staff sick time is lessened. But most importantly: workers in the hospitality industry claim their entitlement to receive the same protection from the Class A Carcinogen tobacco smoke as tobacco seedlings in industry greenhouses, where smoking is prohibited. Workers in the hospitality industry deserve no less protection from harm than sensitive computerized equipment in tobacco manufacturing factories, where smoking is forbidden.26. References: 1 National Toxicology Program 10th Report on Carcinogens 2 Protecting Workers from Secondhand Smoke Workers Centre 3 Establishing Causation of Laryngeal Cancer by Environmental Tobacco Smoke, Medical Journal of Australia 4 The Tobacco Institute, Inc. Minutes of meeting of the Executive Committee, December 10, 1987 5 Proposed Research on the Relationship of Low Levels of Smoking to Mortality letter to Philip Morris Tobacco from James Enstrom 6 Canadian Medical Association Policy Tobacco Control, page 3 7 WHO/IARC IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans 2004 8 EPA Designates Passive Smoking a "Class A" or Known Human Carcinogen 9 Health Canada Fact Sheet #2: Secondhand Smoke 10 Flue-Cured Tobacco Co-Operative v. Environmental Protection Agency December 11, 2002 11 World Health Organization Press Release WHO/29 March 9, 1998 12 EPA Tobacco Lobby, Associated Press November 8, 1990 13 Philip Morris ETS Billing Categories, Summary December 1990 14 John Luik at the Fraser Institute, April 26, 1999 Breather’s Digest 15 CBC Transcript The National June 21, 2001, page 5 16 The Cigarette Papers, Chapter 8, page 296 17 Dietary nicotine: Won't mislead on passive smoking British Medical Journal January 1, 1994 18 Overstating the Case Against Secondhand Smoke is Unnecessary, ASCH Journal August 1, 2000 19 University of California San Francisco Cancer Centre: People 20 Corporate Affairs Budget Presentation Philip Morris Tobacco October 21, 1993 page 5 21 Public Smoking: The Problem Tobacco Institute Report 1985 22 Bars and Restaurants Thrive Amidst Smoking Ban New York Times March 29, 2004 23 Radioactive Cigarettes 2/22/80 Philip Morris Inter-Office Correspondence 24 Radiation Exposure: The Facts vs. Fiction University of Iowa Health Care 25 A Public Relations Strategy for the Tobacco Advisory Council British American Tobacco,November 20, 1978, page 5 point 2.7 26 Computers on Duty! Smoking in Philip Morris Factory is forbidden.Algemeen Dagblad (Holland) July 17, 1982 |
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