February 6, 2000
 

Dear Council Speaker Vallone and Health Committee Members,

     As an adult smoker I would like to take this opportunity to oppose the upcoming proposal to ban smoking everywhere, including bars and nightclubs.

     Since the Environmental Protection Agency's secondhand smoke study [summary], reporting the negative effect it has on the public, has been scientifically dismantled and furthermore invalidated by Federal Court Judge William Osteen of North Carolina, determining the report to be a deliberate fraud, the proposed bans are nothing more than the imposition of will of the over-zealous health conscious on smokers in an effort to make them quit.  I cannot stand by and allow legislation, in the name of public health, to be considered when in fact there is no risk to public health.

     Forgetting about the secondhand smoke issue for a moment, I would like to address the risks that smokers assume.  It is not a legitimate function of government to protect citizens against the risks which are fully known to them and which they willingly choose to assume.  That applies to skydiving, bungee jumping and yes, smoking.  A liberal from days past, John Stuart Mill, once said, "When there is not a certainty, but only a danger of mischief, no one but the person himself can judge the sufficiency of the motive which may prompt him to incur risk.  In this case therefore, he ought to be only warned of the danger, not forcibly prevented from exposing himself to it."  In other words, governments should warn people about the risks of their behavior but if an informed person still chooses to do something risky, that is his business.  Mill's view is common sense for anyone who sees freedom as society's highest value.  But increasingly, government policy is being driven by public health officials and activists who do not see it that way.  Health is their highest value and they are willing to erode freedom to advance it.

     It is agreed that smoking itself is a risk.  The question raised is to what degree is it a risk?  The World Health Organization funded a project dubbed MONICA.  The results were announced at the European Congress of Cardiology in Vienna, sometime late 1998.  The study assessed 21 countries over 10 years and could find no statistical connection between the reduction and changes in obesity, smoking, blood pressure or cholesterol levels.  This largest ever cardiology study failed to find a link between heart attacks and the classic risk factors, such as smoking.  There are further studies published on MedLine that report genetic mutations are the more likely cause of lung cancer in smokers and that while smoking contributes to this mutation, it is not smoking alone that is the cause of lung cancer.  There are confounders that need to be taken into consideration.  The 1964 Surgeon General's Report is no longer reliable information.  That report itself has been shown to be based on studies that were gathered haphazardly, thereby making it questionable.  The scientific and medical communities are now debating the worth of the information published in that report which the world has used as a basis of bias since it was introduced.  Smoking has decreased by almost 75% since the report was disseminated to the public.  Why hasn't lung cancer rates also declined?

     I report on the risk that adult smokers choose to take in order to further the claim that the actions of the anti-smoking community to ban smoking in bars and workplaces, even where everyone consents to smoking, has little to do with keeping workers safe.  It is about making it inconvenient for smokers to indulge, thus pushing them toward changing behavior.  Behavior as some seem fit.  There is something wrong with society when a few can judge what's best for everyone else when the behavior is only affecting the one who has willingly chosen that behavior.   The secondhand smoke campaign is a fraud,  as I will show.   That  leads one to  believe that any attempt at regulation is an attack against smokers themselves and a misguided intrusion by government.

     It must be noted that the studies against secondhand smoke are almost exclusively epidemiological, which is to say statistical.  The statistics on secondhand smoke, to date, have boiled down to two types of study; the completely fraudulent (the EPA study) or the exaggerated (the WHO study which produced no statistically significant correlation between shs and cancer).  All the studies that take into account the level of exposure have shown that a non-smoker in the smokiest conceivable environment is getting a dose equivalent to less than one cigarette per day.  Many such studies, concentrating on realistic levels of exposure have suggested a dose equivalent to a handful of cigarettes per year.  No reputable authority claims that a person smoking a cigarette per day is causing serious damage to his health.

     The following is part of the results and conclusions section of the World Health Organization's study on Environmental Tobacco Smoke.  I believe it to be the largest study ever done:

     "Results:  ETS exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer (odds ratio 0.78%).   The odds ratio for ever exposure to spousal ETS was 1.16%.  No clear dose response relationship could be demonstrated for cumulative spousal ETS exposure.  The odds ratio for ever exposure to workplace ETS was 1.17% with possible evidence of increasing risk for increasing duration of exposure"

     "Conclusion:  Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS and lung cancer risk.  We did find weak evidence of a dose response relationship between risk of lung cancer and exposure to spousal and workplace ETS.  There was no detectable risk after cessation of exposure."

     When reading these statements you must take into account the terms "possible" and "weak."  "Possible" does not make something so and "weak" is barely statistically significant.  These studies tell you that organizations, Federal and private, are getting hysterical over the public health hazard of an exposure level that amounts to less than two cigarettes per week.  There is currently no standing study that shows a direct correlation to deaths and diseases from ETS.

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    A study conducted by an Independent Consultant in Statistics and Epidemiology in Surry, UK, "Difficulties in Assessing the Relationship Between Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer," reported the following in June 1998:

     "It is shown there is no significant association of lung cancer with workplace, childhood or social ETS exposure or with smoking by the wife.  Though statistically significant, the association with husband's smoking is weak and heterogeneous and varies widely according to various study characteristics.  The association is markedly weakened by the adjustment for smoking misclassification bias and is likely to be affected by confounding and other sources of bias.  While the precise extent of all the biases remain unclear, it seems impossible to conclude with any certainty that ETS causes lung cancer."

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   The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a key agency in disseminating the risks involved with smoking and secondhand smoke, evaluated the large body of evidence that exists regarding the health effects of ETS.  ACSH's analysis yields that extensive epidemiological evidence indicates that ETS exposure is a weak risk factor in the development of lung cancer in nonsmokers regularly exposed to ETS in the workplace and/or at home.  ACSH goes on to say that epidemiological  evidence also suggests that ETS is a weak risk factor for heart disease in nonsmoking spouses of smokers and in nonsmokers regularly exposed to ETS in the workplace and/or at home.   ACSH further reports that other reported links between ETS and chronic disease, ie. breast cancer and cervical cancer, have not been scientifically established.  The only findings ACSH could establish were nuisance concerns for nonsmokers.

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     State and City officials and private organizations that believe Environmental Tobacco Smoke is a public health danger (and not just a nuisance) are completely misled by the EPA and other health agencies.  Fifteen members (scientists, managers and affiliated persons) of the EPA have blown the whistle on egregious misconduct  at the EPA.   They are but a few protesting fraud or waste in the agency involving hundreds of millions of dollars and alerting the public that EPA regulations and enforcement actions based on poor science stand to harm rather than protect public health and the environment.

     The Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the U.S. Congress, has also challenged the truthfulness of the EPA study.  The CRS's reputation for accuracy and impartiality adds weight to the growing skepticism about the EPA's "Passive Smoking" study.  According to the CRS report, "Cigarette Taxes To Fund Health Care Reform: An Economic Analysis," the EPA's study made subjective judgements, failed to account for important factors that could bias the results and relaxed a crucial scientific standard to achieve the result the study was looking for in the first place.

     To arrive at its conclusion that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer, the EPA didn't bother to do any research of its own.  Instead, it looked at the results of other studies - studies that had mostly failed to find a positive relationship between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.  When the EPA didn't like the methods used by the studies, it simply altered them.  This included changing the crucial "confidence level" used to reduce the chance of mistaking a random correlation for a true relationship.  The CRS blasts EPA for this flouting of scientific procedure, remarking that "it is unusual to return to a study after the fact, lower the required significance level, and declare its results to be supportive rather than unsupportive of the effect one's theory suggests should be present."

     Medical experts outside the government are raising questions.  Two professors of medicine and a practicing physician analyzed the EPA study in detail.  They concluded that "scientific integrity was compromised, if not outright abused, by the manner in which this risk assessment was generated."
 
     The United States Federal Court Decision by Judge William Osteen wraps up the entire question on whether the EPA misrepresented their findings on secondhand smoke, to wit:

     "The record and EPA's explanations to the court make it clear that using standard methodology, EPA could not produce statistically significant results with its selected studies.  Analysis conducted with a .05 significance level and 95% confidence level included relative risks of 1.  Accordingly, these results did not confirm EPA's controversial a priori hypothesis.  In order to confirm its hypothesis, EPA maintained its standard significance level but lowered the confidence interval to 90%.  This allowed EPA to confirm its hypothesis by finding a relative risk of 1.19, albeit a very weak association.  EPA's conduct raises several concerns besides whether a relative risk of 1.19 is credible evidence supporting a Group A classification.  First, with such a weak showing, if even a fraction of Plaintiff's allegations regarding study selection or methodology is true, EPA cannot show a statistically significant association between ETS and lung cancer."

     "It is clear that Congress intended EPA to disseminate findings from the information researched and gathered.  In this case, EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun; excluded industry by violating the Acts' procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency's public conclusion, and aggressively utilized the Act's authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiffs, products and to influence public opinion."

     Judge Osteen then invalidated and vacated Chapters 1 thru 6 of and the Appendices to EPA's "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking:  Lung Cancer and Other Disorders."

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     Is this what the New York City Council Health Committee wants to base legislation on to expand the bans on smoking in New York City?  The "danger" of secondhand smoke is an illusion except in the cases of extraordinarily sensitive individuals.  To base the law on their cases is to open the possibility of banning flashing lights lest we harm the occasional epileptic.   More harm is done when you are in a traffic jam than from secondhand smoke.  But like all fanatics and paranoids, anti-smokers like the feeling of controlling what other people can and cannot do and smokers are the politically correct targets at the moment.  It has nothing to do with facts.  That in itself is criminal behavior and detrimental to the rights of everyone as guaranteed under the Constitution.

     As long as tobacco products are a legal commodity in this country, government has no right to force people to give it up through its own biased agenda.  If anyone is in need of control it is the officials and private organizations who have embraced tyranny as their ideal to control smoking.  What group will be the next victim of this tyranny?

     The scientific case against secondhand smoke, must at this point in time be considered not proven.  Currently available data are equivocal.  Smoking limitations already in place are more than sufficient to accommodate those who claim to be adversely affected by secondhand smoke.  In actuality, the current bans are too restrictive since they are based on the falsehood that secondhand smoke is harmful.  But never let it be said that smokers are not willing to compromise and seek the same respect from government.  Society can be defined as a compromise agreement between minorities for mutual benefit.  To deny compromise to one minority, in this case smokers, is to undermine and deny the very foundations and principles of society.  The compromise would consist of individual owners of establishments deciding for themselves whether to permit or deny smoking on their premise or to provide non-smoking and smoking sections with proper ventilation.  To deny this kind of compromise is to be strictly recognized as a bully (your way or no way).

     From the information I've provided it is my conclusion that the Council Speaker and the New York City Council Committee on Health are not arguing the case from a scientific standpoint but from personal prejudice against those who smoke.  You are perpetuating a lie to meet your own ends, to influence the opinions of nonsmokers in an attempt at behavior modification of smokers.  If this was a case being presented in front of judge and jury, you would be charged with perjury and further branded by those in attendance as discriminators.

     It is my intention to apprise as many people as possible the lie being perpetrated upon them by government in its attempt to control the people.  Today it is the smokers and tomorrow it will be caffeine users.  That is the large ugly picture.  One more fact to take into consideration:  Smokers are 25% of the population.  Nonsmokers who are indifferent to smoke are 50% of the population.  That leaves a measly 25% who spew this kind of hatred towards smokers.  Hence, 75% of the population will eventually not stand by and let  needless government intrusion continue.  They understand the ramifications of allowing one group of people to be controlled.  Something to consider at election time.

Sincerely,

Audrey Silk