Tobacco Scam: Smokefree Restaurants: Secondhand Smoke - The Issue is Health

Industry Attacks on Science

What does Big Tobacco do when it's confronted with massive scientific evidence that tobacco smoke kills?

1. Launches disinformation campaigns to discredit the science.

2. Distorts and generates controversy about solid, authoritative results.

3. Commissions pseudo-scientific research to muddy and dispute results.

How far Big Tobacco goes...

Two case studies show how Big Tobacco keeps the public from getting the facts. In one example, the tobacco industry attacked the first study linking secondhand smoke to lung cancer. In the second, Big Tobacco mounts a much more sophisticated campaign to stop the release and distort the findings of a lung cancer study by an agency of the World Health Organization.

Similar pseudo-science techniques are used to turn economic reality on its head and stampede restaurant owners into joining Big Tobacco's battle to protect its profits from cost-free smokefree measures.

The Hirayama Lung Cancer Study (1981)

Japanese epidemiologist Takeshi Hirayama showed that non-smoking women married to smoking men had higher lung cancer rates than non-smoking women married to non-smoking men.

The Tobacco Institute ran this hit ad across the U.S. (and similar versions around the world) beginning in 1982, shortly after the first published reports linking secondhand smoke to lung cancer. Click on image to view a larger.

In typical Big Tobacco fashion, the Tobacco Institute commissioned an "eminent statistician" to "critique" Hirayama's paper, used this unpublished critique to generate press stories repeating the Institute's claim that the study was "flawed," then used the press stories in a worldwide advertising campaign. (Big Tobacco used this same tactic to spread "The 30% Myth" that smokefree measures harm restaurant revenues.)

Soon after, in a secret tobacco industry meeting, a top German tobacco industry scientist reported that "that Hirayama was correct, that the TI [Tobacco Institute] knew it and that TI published its statement about Hirayama knowing that the work was correct."

WHO/IARC Secondhand Smoke and Cancer Study (1998)

In 1998, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), cancer research branch of the World Health Organization (WHO), published a seven-country study that found a 16-17% increase in lung cancer risk associated with secondhand smoke. This finding is consistent with the rest of the scientific literature.

Before the study was published, on March 8, 1998, the London Sunday Telegraph reported, incorrectly, that WHO was withholding the study because not only did it fail to show secondhand smoke caused lung cancer, but suggested that Secondhand smoke could even reduce lung cancer risk. These "astounding results are set to throw wide open the debate on passive smoking health risks�[and] are certain to be an embarrassment to the WHO," said the newspaper story, quickly picked up from Australia to the U.S. to Zimbabwe.

British American Tobacco (BAT), was suspected of fuelling the Sunday Telegraph story. Dr. Chris Proctor, a scientific spokesman for BAT Industries, was quoted: 'If this study cannot find any statistically valid risk you have to ask if there can be any risk at all." It is longtime tobacco industry practice to distort the meaning of "statistical significance."

The World Health Organization immediately released a strong denial, titled "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer, Do Not Let Them Fool You." It said the study results were not being withheld but, according to accepted scientific practice, had been sent to a reputable scientific journal for peer review before publication.

The results of this study, which have been completely misrepresented in recent news reports, are very much in line with the results of similar studies both in Europe and elsewhere: passive smoking causes lung cancer in non-smokers�

Long before the WHO/IARC study was released, Philip Morris had prepared a strategy to discredit it. From the company's September 1993 "Action Plan":

Develop a programme to generate support for "junk science" and education on use and abuse of epidemiology, possibly through a coalition on bad science...

Develop a communications programme to build appropriate public/policy climate in advance of the study results...[and] to mute/neutralize smoking bans/excessive restrictions.

Develop a contingency plan, should the preliminary results be leaked. Assemble a crisis communications team/plan to manage the impact of the release of the study.

Prepare pre/post public and leadership opinion surveys to evaluate the impact of the findings on public attitudes towards ETS and the need for smoking restrictions.

Evaluate the pros and cons of conducting journalist briefings prior to the release of the study.

Big Tobacco launched all of these programs before the study's release. Philip Morris also employed third parties to recruit other participants and funders into its "junk science" discussion, extending it to issues beyond secondhand smoke � thus masking the tobacco industry's role as initiator or sponsor. (The "junk science" charge is also used by the fossil fuel industry, through fronts, to discredit global warming.)

IARC spent $2 million over ten years on its study. Philip Morris planned to spend $2 million in 1994 alone on anti-IARC activities and up to $4 million on additional counter-research.

After Big Tobacco's campaign against IARC was exposed, IARC put out a press release that stated, in part:

The existence of a carcinogenic risk from passive smoking adds a new dimension to the debate on health effects of tobacco since in contrast to the diseases affecting the active smoker, it represents a health damage imposed on people who have chosen not to smoke. This difference has great implications in terms of regulation of smoking in public settings, and may, in the long run, be a major factor towards the decrease in tobacco consumption. This explains the strong interest of the tobacco industry to monitor and discredit studies, including the one from IARC, that contribute to establishing the causal link between passive smoking and cancer.

In October 1999, WHO director-general Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland appointed a Committee of Experts to research secret tobacco company documents that had become publicly available as a result of lawsuits against the tobacco industry in the U.S. That documentary evidence pointed to systematic and global efforts by the tobacco industry to undermine tobacco control policy and research developments. "Tobacco Industry Strategies to Undermine Tobacco Control Activities at the World Health Organization," was released in August 2000.

The beat goes on...

As of early 2002, Philip Morris's own web site was still misrepresenting the IARC study as showing restaurants need not worry about the cancer-causing chemicals in secondhand smoke:

One of the largest and most prominent examples of this type of study is the one published by IARC, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (an affiliate of the World Health Organization), which reported small increases of relative risk (that were not statistically significant) for lung cancer. The report specifically noted a "lack of an effect of 'social' sources in our study," meaning that an increased risk was not detected based on exposure to ETS in places like restaurants.

This statement glosses over the fact that a carcinogen is a carcinogen whether you are exposed at home or at work, including a restaurant or bar. There is simply no safe level of exposure for the cancer-causing chemicals in secondhand smoke. And the effects are cumulative.

IARC closes the book on secondhand smoke and lung cancer

In June, 2002, after an extensive review of the world literature on secondhand smoke and lung cancer, IARC concluded:

Nonsmokers are exposed to the same carcinogens as active smokers.

Even the typical levels of passive exposure have been shown to cause lung cancer among never smokers. Second-hand tobacco smoke IS carcinogenic to humans.

The question now is: Will Big Tobacco continue misrepresenting the IARC (WHO) position on secondhand smoke and lung cancer?