Secondhand smoke

secondhand smoke was where tobacco co's perfected doubt strategy?

note color below

promoted to primary 12/15

bak 820

==

see CA prop 65 1998

==

it was the 2nd round after historic lawsuit?

RICO countered by voodoo TP: 

EPA had (sole?) regulatory jurisdiction?  became a target for DOUBT

EPAwatch bonner cohen

oreskes sum

Chapter 5 – What’s Bad Science? Who Decides? The Fight over Secondhand Smoke

When the EPA took steps to limit indoor smoking, Fred Singerjoined forces with the Tobacco Institute to challenge the scientific basis of secondhand smoke’s health risks. But they didn’t just claim that the data were insufficient; they claimed that the EPA was doing “bad science”.They began to discredit the EPA in general.

Wide ranging studies showed the effects of secondhand smoke in the USA, Germany, Japan and others despite other differences in lifestyle, diet and the like. The EPA called the weight of evidence “conclusive”. Both Fred Seitz and Fred Singer denied it.

In 1990 Singer had created his SEPP to “promote ‘sound science’ in environmental policy” which meant in part to defend the tobacco industry in collaboration with APCO Associates, the public relations firm hired by Philip Morris for their secondhand smoke campaign. Singer launched a full-frontal assault claiming that the science done at the EPA was “junk”, taking “extreme positions not supported by science”and claiming that they “could not rule out other factors… such as diet, outdoor air pollution, genetics, prior lung disease, etc.”. WHAT BOUT?] Why would the EPA “rig” the statistics for a 90% confidence level instead of 95%? Singer’s answer: Controlling smoke would lead to greater regulation in general. [Remember those Commies under the bed?  ]

The EPA had considered and ruled out other factors and recognized that some of them contributed to cancers but the statistical evidence was overwhelming the secondhand smoke was an added risk. Singer must have understood this but he was not practicing science, he was attacking it, apparently with ideological motivation, that regulating smoke was the foot in the door for more regulation, putting individual liberty at stake. The tobacco industry published a book titled “Bad Science: A Resource Book” based in part on Singer’s work. Nearly all quotes in the book were unsubstantiated assertions presented as fact. The Bad Science strategy was to plant complaints in op-ed pieces, in letters to the editor and in articles in mainstream journals (not scientific journals) to whom they’d supplied the “facts” and then quote them as if they really were facts.

The fact that Singer was recycling arguments from earlier debates about nuclear power and pesticides, and his defense of acid rain and CFCs suggests that none of this was about secondhand smoke but was rather about his hostility to regulation, the road to Socialism, the very thing the Cold War was fought to defeat. At the root was free market fundamentalism.

==

~ WHO

UC david kessler et al 260 pp

https://escholarship.org/content/qt83m9c2wt/qt83m9c2wt_noSplash_e2a3d02b949400ef3609aa790c0c8939.pdf?t=krnnij

--

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1446867/

no lnx

Am J Public Health. 2001 November; 91(11): 1745–1748.

doi: 10.2105/ajph.91.11.1745

PMCID: PMC1446867

PMID: 11684592

Junking Science to Promote Tobacco

Derek Yach, MBChB, MPH and Stella Aguinaga Bialous, DrPH, MScN, RN

Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Go to:

Abstract

Despite the tobacco industry's claims that it has changed its practices, the toll of tobacco-related disease and death continues to grow worldwide, and the industry continues to use a vast array of strategies to promote its products and increase profits. This commentary discusses the ways the tobacco industry has created controversy about risk assessment and about the scientific evidence of the health hazards of secondhand smoke.

The authors recommend that policymakers be more vigilant and that they demand transparency about affiliations and linkages between allegedly independent scientists and tobacco companies. They also urge policymakers to be prepared for new and continuing challenges posed by the tobacco industry, because, despite the industry's claims, there is little evidence of fundamental change in its objectives.

TOBACCO COMPANIES CLAIM that they have changed. They assert that their efforts to undermine global tobacco control policy are a product of a past era and that now they seek to engage in constructive dialogue with the World Health Organization (WHO) and national governments.1 Unfortunately, the reality is that the consequences of their actions continue. Four million deaths per year, 1.2 billion smokers in the world today, and high rates of youth smoking are in part the result of the failure of governments to implement tobacco control policies that are known to work. And governments' inaction is largely a result of decades of tobacco companies' untoward influence.

Among the lingering effects of tobacco companies' actions are the insidious ways in which the public health policy agenda and the media debate about tobacco have been influenced. In this issue of the Journal, Ong and Glantz highlight one aspect of industry influence with respect to epidemiologic standards of causality.2 The authors show that tobacco companies carefully planned to undermine accepted epidemiologic practices and hoped that by partnering with a broad range of academic and private commercial interests, they could create confusion about the role of epidemiology and risk assessment in public policy development. The ultimate goal of the industry was to promote the trivialization of the risk of tobacco use, stating that nearly everything from eating Twinkies to crossing the street was harmful, and that tobacco was just one more “risky pleasure.”

Ong and Glantz's work needs to be considered within the broader concerted efforts of the tobacco companies to influence public policy in a manner detrimental to public health. The release of tobacco industry documents following US litigation provides us with access to a snapshot of the truth. These documents show a nearly 50-year effort to improve public relations, rather than public health.

One example, from 1977, is Operation Berkshire,3 which shows how 7 of the world's largest tobacco companies colluded to promote doubt about tobacco and health. These companies created the International Committee on Smoking Issues (later the International Tobacco Information Center) to internationally coordinate a network of national manufacturers' associations to block tobacco control measures. In another example, Philip Morris convened a meeting of its top executives in 1988 in Boca Raton, Fla, to develop an action plan aimed at attacking WHO's tobacco control programs at the national level and targeting the structure, management, and resources of the WHO.4

These documents show the lengths the tobacco industry went to in its attempt to thwart the International Agency for Research on Cancer's epidemiologic research on secondhand smoke and lung cancer in Europe.5 They show how linkages were created between tobacco companies and the chemical, food, pesticide, and utility industries, as well as how the tobacco industry developed its “scientific” strategy.

The industry documents, described in The Cigarette Papers6 and most recently summarized in A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle With a Deadly Industry,7 tell about the scope and depth of the tobacco companies' ability to recruit scientists from the ranks of the most prestigious academic institutions. Tobacco companies sought to create doubt where scientific consensus existed. To do so, they enlisted scientists in their cause. This way, the industry voice would be heard but the industry would not be directly involved, as tobacco industry funding often remained undisclosed in publications and participation in public forums.

The consultants, grantees, and speakers who were willing to work for the industry came from some of the best academic centers in the United States and abroad. For example, the US Tobacco Institute had a team of academics and scientists, “faculty members of prestigious universities and medical schools,” to assist in responding to the US Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessment methodologies, among other things.8 Although the US Tobacco Institute was forced to close as a condition of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement,9 equivalent agencies still operate in major tobacco markets around the world, where the degree of intimacy between certain scientists and tobacco companies is not widely known.

As discussed by Ong and Glantz, the use of front groups and consultants is a well-established tobacco industry practice to avoid dealing with its lack of public credibility. Scientists were constantly at hand to assist in maintaining the industry-created controversy on the tobacco and health issue.

Go to:

BUYING SCIENTISTS

The tobacco industry continues to fund, directly or indirectly, prestigious academic centers and scientists in its effort to achieve scientific credibility.10 Among the notable academics enlisted by the industry are professors such as A. R. Feinstein of Yale University, editor of the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, who on many occasions has presented the argument that the epidemiologic methods used to assess the risk of passive smoking are inadequate. In a 1992 article, Feinstein supported the tobacco industry's right to defend itself against the label of “bad guy” and criticized the “current atmosphere [in which a tobacco industry] consultant's stature, credibility, and integrity become instantly impugned and tarnished by the depravity of associating with the tobacco ‘bad guy.'”11 He did not mention, however, that he was a tobacco industry consultant and the recipient of highly secret “special project” awards.6,12–14

One prestigious US institution that has received funds from Philip Morris and its subsidiaries is the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, whose former director, John Graham, has assisted Philip Morris with risk communication about environmental tobacco smoke and has on many occasions requested funds for the center.15–18 Among several other sources of corporate support, the center currently has an unrestricted grant from the Philip Morris subsidiary Kraft Foods and a restricted grant from the Risk Science Institute of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI).19 In March 2001 President Bush nominated John Graham to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget.20 This office reviews and approves—or blocks—all major federal regulations. The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen criticized the nomination on the basis of the links between Graham and corporate funding.21,22

The above cases exemplify the tobacco industry's reach into the scientific community and have to be considered within a broader discussion about the influence of private corporate funding on academic research and policies addressing funding disclosure. The debate over conflict of interest between academia and private commercial interests is gaining visibility. In a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the dean of the Harvard medical school stated that more safeguards against conflict of interest are necessary.23 Nils Hasselmo, president of the Association of American Universities, was quoted as saying that “it's the responsibility of the university to serve the public good. The public relies on universities for the greatest degree of objectivity, rather than for information that may be slanted by financial interests.”24

How this debate will influence future tobacco industry funding of academia remains to be seen. Even more important is how academia is going to respond to offers from the tobacco industry. The debate is not yet over. The March 2001 newsletter of California's Tobacco-Related Diseases Research Program was entirely dedicated to the discussion of the implications of tobacco industry funding of science.25 Recently, despite much criticism and the resignation of faculty members, Nottingham University in England accepted £3.8 million from British American Tobacco to create an International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility.26–30

Go to:

DISTORTING RISK

There are many groups and consultants who were funded by the industry, both directly and through subsidiary companies, and who provided the tobacco industry with ample material, in the form of testimony, reports, and other publications, to fight tobacco policy and regulations. For example, ILSI and its Risk Science Institute—a nonprofit worldwide scientific research foundation focusing on the areas of nutrition, food safety, toxicology, risk assessment, and the environment31—gave the tobacco industry an opportunity to blend secondhand smoking risks with other low-dose risks and continue to create doubt and controversy about the harms of secondhand smoke.32 ILSI is a particularly relevant example, given that it has a formal relationship with WHO and IARC and thus offered the tobacco industry the potential for additional access to these institutions.33,34 (Note: Since the writing of this commentary, ILSI executives have agreed to review all aspects of their affiliations with commercial interests.)

In addition to creating front groups and contributing funds to groups that have a mission broad enough to carry some of the tobacco industry's goals, the tobacco companies also use publications by allegedly independent think tanks, such as theVirginia-based Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. This group's 1994 report “Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination”35 criticizes the US Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessment methods in 4 areas: environmental tobacco smoke, radon, pesticides, and hazardous cleanup. It dismisses in its first chapter the agency's risk assessment of environmental tobacco smoke, using arguments similar to the tobacco industry's “junk science” arguments described by Ong and Glantz.

This report has been widely used by the tobacco industry in its quest to dismiss the hazards of environmental tobacco smoke. And although no direct financial link has been established, several members of the report's academic advisory board have been involved with different tobacco companies' activities.36

The report's principal reviewer, Dr Fred Singer, was involved with the International Center for a Scientific Ecology, a group that was considered important in Philip Morris' plans to create a group in Europe similar to The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), as discussed by Ong and Glantz.37,38 He was also on a tobacco industry list of people who could write op-ed pieces on “junk science,” defending the industry's views.39

The junk science saga continues. In February 2001, on the Web site JunkScience.com, Martha Perske provided a critique of studies linking passive smoking and lung cancer.40 In the article, she grossly misstates the WHO's work in this field. Perske has no formal scientific training and her one publication in the peer-reviewed literature is aletter to the editor—which appeared, incidentally, in the journal edited by Alvan Feinstein.41 She describes herself as a “smokers' advocate,” but industry documents show that she stayed in close contact with Philip Morris, asking for their review of and comments on her activities.42

The goal of the tobacco industry's “scientific strategy” was not to reveal the truth but to protect the industry from loss of revenue and to prevent governments from establishing effective tobacco control measures. The industry's goals of creating doubt and controversy and placing the burden of proof on the public health community in policy forums have, therefore, met with a certain degree of success. Tobacco control policies are not being implemented worldwide at the rate that current scientific knowledge about the dangers of tobacco warrants. But this scenario is changing as the negotiations for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control continue to advance. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control marks the first time the WHO has used its treaty-making right to support member states in developing a legally binding instrument in the service of public health. Negotiations are progressing well, and it is likely that member states will vote on ratification of the convention in mid-2003.

What do the revelations about tobacco company actions mean for public health policy? In general terms, they call for policymakers to demand complete transparency about affiliations and linkages between allegedly independent scientists and tobacco companies. Academic naïveté about tobacco companies' intentions is no longer excusable. The extent of the tobacco companies' manipulation needs to be thoroughly exposed, and students of many disciplines (public health, public policy, ethics, and law, to name a few) should be provided with the evidence that is increasingly available through the tobacco industry documents.

Initiatives such as the American Legacy Foundation's $15 million grant to the University of California, San Francisco, to establish the Legacy National Documents Library and the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education 43 must be lauded. The foundation's example should be followed by other donor institutions that want to address international public health issues seriously. After all, every gain in tobacco control in the United States is an incentive for tobacco companies to globalize their operations.

Strict codes of conduct are needed to protect the integrity of the public health policy process from undue influence, especially from the likes of the secret and deleterious influences that were brought to bear over decades by the tobacco industry. Ethics committees need to consider conflict of interest as important as patient confidentiality.26,44

Go to:

NEW AND CONTINUING CHALLENGES

For tobacco control research, the challenges are not over, but they have changed. No longer will tobacco companies dispute the scientific evidence that active smoking of traditional cigarettes causes harm. However, they continue to deny the scientific evidence about the harm caused by exposure to secondhand smoke and continue to suggest ventilation as an alternative to smoking bans in public places.45,46 Added to the debate is the issue of determining whether and how newly developed tobacco products confer reduced harm. The tobacco companies' investment, statements, and research in this field make it clear that they regard new “reduced harm” products as an important strategic and financial priority. But what standards of proof will be used to measure reduced harm?

In anticipation of this shift in focus, WHO has established a scientific advisory committee on tobacco product regulation to address these very issues. This committee has met with certain tobacco company scientists. On February 22, 2001, the Institute of Medicine released a report calling for strict scientific analysis and regulatory policy of tobacco products that claim to be “less harmful” than products currently available on the market.47 On the same day, Philip Morris announced that it is following other tobacco companies and intends to launch a “safer” cigarette in 2 years.48 It is noteworthy that recent reports on these “safer” cigarettes address only the carcinogenic properties of tobacco and largely ignore the fact that cancer is but one in a long list of diseases caused by passive and active smoking.

Whereas in the past it was public health scientists who raised the alarm and called for solutions, it is now predominantly industry scientists who claim to have found solutions. The burden of proof of reduced harm must rest on the tobacco industry, and the public health community must take the proactive step of developing internationally accepted means of verifying whether any tobacco product can truly be labeled safer than another. Tobacco companies will find that the epidemiologic standards they so vigorously opposed (for example, dismissal of studies with odds ratios of less than 2) are the very standards they will need to use to demonstrate whether their new products are indeed safer.

Go to:

Notes

Note. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the World Health Organization.

D. Yach developed the concept of the paper and the first draft. Both D. Yach and S. A. Bialous performed the document research and prepared and revised the final manuscript.

Peer Reviewed

Go to:

References

2-3x

https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/212/45267.html

The Denial Industry

By George Monbiot

Guardian

September 19,2006

For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three extracts from his new book, George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new story.

exxonMobil is the world's most profitable corporation. Its sales now amount to more than $1bn a day. It makes most of this money from oil, and has more to lose than any other company from efforts to tackle climate change. To safeguard its profits, ExxonMobil needs to sow doubt about whether serious action needs to be taken on climate change. But there are difficulties: it must confront a scientific consensus as strong as that which maintains that smoking causes lung cancer or that HIV causes Aids. So what's its strategy?

The website Exxonsecrets.org, using data found in the company's official documents, lists 124 organisations that have taken money from the company or work closely with those that have. These organisations take a consistent line on climate change: that the science is contradictory, the scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics, and if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering the global economy for no good reason. The findings these organisations dislike are labelled "junk science". The findings they welcome are labelled "sound science".

Among the organisations that have been funded by Exxon are such well-known websites and lobby groups as TechCentralStation, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Some of those on the list have names that make them look like grassroots citizens' organisations or academic bodies: the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, for example. One or two of them, such as the Congress of Racial Equality, are citizens' organisations or academic bodies, but the line they take on climate change is very much like that of the other sponsored groups. While all these groups are based in America, their publications are read and cited, and their staff are interviewed and quoted, all over the world.

By funding a large number of organisations, Exxon helps to create the impression that doubt about climate change is widespread. For those who do not understand that scientific findings cannot be trusted if they have not appeared in peer-reviewed journals, the names of these institutes help to suggest that serious researchers are challenging the consensus.

This is not to claim that all the science these groups champion is bogus. On the whole, they use selection, not invention. They will find one contradictory study - such as thediscovery of tropospheric cooling, which, in a garbled form, has been used by Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday - and promote it relentlessly. They will continue to do so long after it has been disproved by further work. So, for example, John Christy, the author of the troposphere paper, admitted in August 2005 that his figures were incorrect, yet his initial findings are still being circulated and championed by many of these groups, as a quick internet search will show you.

But they do not stop there. The chairman of a group called the Science and Environmental Policy Project is Frederick Seitz. Seitz is a physicist who in the 1960s was president of the US National Academy of Sciences. In 1998, he wrote a document, known as the Oregon Petition, which has been cited by almost every journalist who claims that climate change is a myth.

The document reads as follows: "We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Anyone with a degree was entitled to sign it. It was attached to a letter written by Seitz, entitled Research Review of Global Warming Evidence. The lead author of the "review" that followed Seitz's letter is a Christian fundamentalist called Arthur B Robinson. He is not a professional climate scientist. It was co-published by Robinson's organisation - the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine - and an outfit called the George C Marshall Institute, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The other authors were Robinson's 22-year-old son and two employees of the George C Marshall Institute. The chairman of the George C Marshall Institute was Frederick Seitz.

The paper maintained that: "We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution."

It was printed in the font and format of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: the journal of the organisation of which Seitz - as he had just reminded his correspondents - was once president.

Soon after the petition was published, the National Academy of Sciences released this statement: "The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal. The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."

But it was too late. Seitz, the Oregon Institute and the George C Marshall Institute had already circulated tens of thousands of copies, and the petition had established a major presence on the internet. Some 17,000 graduates signed it, the majority of whom had no background in climate science. It has been repeatedly cited - by global-warming sceptics such as David Bellamy, Melanie Phillips and others - as a petition by climate scientists. It is promoted by the Exxon-sponsored sites as evidence that there is no scientific consensus on climate change.

All this is now well known to climate scientists and environmentalists. But what I have discovered while researching this issue is that the corporate funding of lobby groups denying that manmade climate change is taking place was initiated not by Exxon, or by any other firm directly involved in the fossil fuel industry. It was started by the tobacco company Philip Morris.

In December 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency published a 500-page report called Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking. It found that "the widespread exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)in the United States presents a serious and substantial public health impact. In adults: ETS is a human lung carcinogen, responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in US non-smokers. In children: ETS exposure is causally associated with an increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. This report estimates that 150,000 to 300,000 cases annually in infants and young children up to 18 months of age are attributable to ETS."

Had it not been for the settlement of a major class action against the tobacco companies in the US, we would never have been able to see what happened next. But in 1998 they were forced to publish their internal documents and post them on the internet.

Within two months of its publication, Philip Morris, the world's biggest tobacco firm, had devised a strategy for dealing with the passive-smoking report. In February 1993 Ellen Merlo, its senior vice-president of corporate affairs, sent a letter to William I Campbell, Philip Morris's chief executive officer and president, explaining her intentions: "Our overriding objective is to discredit the EPA report ... Concurrently, it is our objective to prevent states and cities, as well as businesses, from passive-smoking bans."

To this end, she had hired a public relations company called APCO. She had attached the advice it had given her. APCO warned that: "No matter how strong the arguments, industry spokespeople are, in and of themselves, not always credible or appropriate messengers."

So the fight against a ban on passive smoking had to be associated with other people and other issues. Philip Morris, APCO said, needed to create the impression of a "grassroots" movement - one that had been formed spontaneously by concerned citizens to fight "overregulation". It should portray the danger of tobacco smoke as just one "unfounded fear" among others, such as concerns about pesticides and cellphones.APCO proposed to set up "a national coalition intended to educate the media, public officials and the public about the dangers of 'junk science'. Coalition will address credibility of government's scientific studies, risk-assessment techniques and misuse of tax dollars ... Upon formation of Coalition, key leaders will begin media outreach, eg editorial board tours, opinion articles, and brief elected officials in selected states."

APCO would found the coalition, write its mission statements, and "prepare and place opinion articles in key markets". For this it required $150,000 for its own fees and $75,000 for the coalition's costs. By May 1993, as another memo from APCO to Philip Morris shows, the fake citizens' group had a name: the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. It was important, further letters stated, "to ensure that TASSC has a diverse group of contributors"; to "link the tobacco issue with other more 'politically correct' products"; and to associate scientific studies that cast smoking in a bad light with "broader questions about government research and regulations" - such as "global warming", "nuclear waste disposal" and "biotechnology". APCO would engage in the "intensive recruitment of high-profile representatives from business and industry, scientists, public officials, and other individuals interested in promoting the use ofsound science".

By September 1993, APCO had produced a "Plan for the Public Launching of TASSC". The media launch would not take place in "Washington, DC or the top media markets of the country. Rather, we suggest creating a series of aggressive, decentralised launches in several targeted local and regional markets across the country. This approach ... avoids cynical reporters from major media: less reviewing/challenging of TASSC messages."

The media coverage, the public relations company hoped, would enable TASSC to "establish an image of a national grassroots coalition". In case the media asked hostile questions, APCO circulated a sheet of answers, drafted by Philip Morris. The first question was: "Isn't it true that Philip Morris created TASSC to act as a front group for it? "A: No, not at all. As a large corporation, PM belongs to many national, regional, and state business, public policy, and legislative organisations. PM has contributed to TASSC, as we have with various groups and corporations across the country."

There are clear similarities between the language used and the approaches adopted by Philip Morris and by the organisations funded by Exxon. The two lobbies use the same terms, which appear to have been invented by Philip Morris's consultants."Junk science" meant peer-reviewed studies showing that smoking was linked to cancer and other diseases. "Sound science" meant studies sponsored by the tobacco industry suggesting that the link was inconclusive. Both lobbies recognised that their best chance of avoiding regulation was to challenge the scientific consensus. As a memo from the tobacco company Brown and Williamson noted, "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." Both industries also sought to distance themselves from their own campaigns, creating the impression that they were spontaneous movements of professionals or ordinary citizens: the "grassroots".

But the connection goes further than that. TASSC, the "coalition" created by Philip Morris, was the first and most important of the corporate-funded organisations denying that climate change is taking place. It has done more damage to the campaign to halt it than any other body.

TASSC did as its founders at APCO suggested, and sought funding from other sources. Between 2000 and 2002 it received $30,000 from Exxon. The website it has financed - JunkScience.com - has been the main entrepot for almost every kind of climate-change denial that has found its way into the mainstream press.It equates environmentalists with Nazis, communists and terrorists. It flings at us the accusations that could justifably be levelled against itself: the website claims, for example, that it is campaigning against "faulty scientific data and analysis used to advance special and, often, hidden agendas". I have lost count of the number of correspondents who, while questioning manmade global warming, have pointed me there.

The man who runs it is called Steve Milloy. In 1992, he started working for APCO - Philip Morris's consultants. While there, he set up the JunkScience site. In March 1997, the documents show, he was appointed TASSC's executive director. By 1998, as he explained in a memo to TASSC board members, his JunkScience website was was being funded by TASSC. Both he and the "coalition" continued to receive money from Philip Morris. An internal document dated February 1998 reveals that TASSC took $200,000 from the tobacco company in 1997. Philip Morris's 2001 budget document records a payment to Steven Milloy of $90,000. Altria, Philip Morris's parent company, admits that Milloy was under contract to the tobacco firm until at least the end of 2005.

He has done well. You can find his name attached to letters and articles seeking to discredit passive-smoking studies all over the internet and in the academic databases. He has even managed to reach the British Medical Journal: I found a letter from him there which claimed that the studies it had reported "do not bear out the hypothesis that maternal smoking/ passive smoking increases cancer risk among infants". TASSC paid him $126,000 in 2004 for 15 hours' work a week. Two other organisations are registered at his address: the Free Enterprise Education Institute and the Free Enterprise Action Institute. They have received $10,000 and $50,000 respectively from Exxon. The secretary of the Free Enterprise Action Institute is Thomas Borelli. Borelli was the Philip Morris executive who oversaw the payments to TASSC.

Milloy also writes a weekly Junk Science column for the Fox News website. Without declaring his interests, he has used this column to pour scorn on studies documenting the medical effects of second-hand tobacco smoke and showing that climate change is taking place. Even after Fox News was told about the money he had been receiving from Philip Morris and Exxon, it continued to employ him, without informing its readers about his interests.

TASSC's headed notepaper names an advisory board of eight people. Three of them are listed by Exxonsecrets.org as working for organisations taking money from Exxon. One of them is Frederick Seitz, the man who wrote the Oregon Petition, and who chairs the Science and Environmental Policy Project. In 1979, Seitz became a permanent consultant to the tobacco company RJ Reynolds. He worked for the firm until at least 1987, for an annual fee of $65,000. He was in charge of deciding which medical research projects the company should fund, and handed out millions of dollars a year to American universities. The purpose of this funding, a memo from the chairman of RJ Reynolds shows, was to "refute the criticisms against cigarettes". An undated note in the Philip Morris archive shows that it was planning a "Seitz symposium" with the help of TASSC, in which Frederick Seitz would speak to "40-60 regulators".

The president of Seitz's Science and Environmental Policy Project is a maverick environmental scientist called S Fred Singer. He has spent the past few years refuting evidence for manmade climate change. It was he, for example, who published the misleading claim that most of the world's glaciers are advancing, which landed David Bellamy in so much trouble when he repeated it last year. He also had connections with the tobacco industry. In March 1993, APCO sent a memo to Ellen Merlo, the vice-president of Philip Morris, who had just commissioned it to fight the Environmental Protection Agency: "As you know, we have been working with Dr Fred Singer and Dr Dwight Lee, who have authored articles on junk science and indoor air quality (IAQ) respectively ..."

Singer's article, entitled Junk Science at the EPA, claimed that "the latest 'crisis' - environmental tobacco smoke - has been widely criticised as the most shocking distortion of scientific evidence yet". He alleged that the Environmental Protection Agency had had to "rig the numbers" in its report on passive smoking. This was the report that Philip Morris and APCO had set out to discredit a month before Singer wrote his article.

I have no evidence that Fred Singer or his organisation have taken money from Philip Morris. But many of the other bodies that have been sponsored by Exxon and have sought to repudiate climate change were also funded by the tobacco company. Among them are some of the world's best-known "thinktanks": the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Independent Institute, as well asGeorge Mason University's Law and Economics Centre. I can't help wondering whether there is any aspect of conservative thought in the United States that has not been formed and funded by the corporations. Until I came across this material, I believed that the accusations, the insults and the taunts such people had slung at us environmentalists were personal: that they really did hate us, and had found someone who would pay to help them express those feelings. Now I realise that they have simply transferred their skills.

While they have been most effective in the United States, the impacts of the climate-change deniers sponsored by Exxon and Philip Morris have been felt all over the world. I have seen their arguments endlessly repeated in Australia, Canada, India, Russia and the UK. By dominating the media debate on climate change during seven or eight critical years in which urgent international talks should have been taking place, by constantly seeding doubt about the science just as it should have been most persuasive, they have justified the money their sponsors have spent on them many times over. It is fair to say that the professional denial industry has delayed effective global action on climate change by years, just as it helped to delay action against the tobacco companies.

This is an edited extract from Heat, by George Monbiot, published by Allen Lane.

==

https://escholarship.org/content/qt83m9c2wt/qt83m9c2wt_noSplash_e2a3d02b949400ef3609aa790c0c8939.pdf?t=krnnij

2x? really about singer:

Fakenomics: The tobacco industry’s PR tactics proved inspirational for the army of climate change deniers, 

writes BRENDAN MONTAGUE Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) would become an increasingly important platoon in the army assembling against climate science.

Along with the late Dr Frederick Seitz – a founder of the Marshall Institute – the SEPP would use PR tactics developed by the tobacco industry to question and undermine climate science.

Seitz, for example, accused the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of producing scientific summaries “exaggerating risk… solely – we suspect – to satisfy an ideological objective of aggressively constraining the use of energy.”

Meanwhile, Singer (pictured) was busy raising money. He proposed to one oil industry PR firm that they should support a $95,000 project. This would include lectures and publications designed to attack the IPCC and help “stem the tide towards ever more onerous controls on energy use.”

Shortly after, Singer testified at the US House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that “there is no scientific consensus on ozone depletion or its consequences.”

Industry funded

Singer also appeared on the popular American programme Nightline to tell viewers that the climate change science had been exaggerated, but when pressed he was forced to admit that he had in the past received funding from oil companies Exxon, Shell and ARCO.

Ross Gelbspan, the American investigative journalist who first exposed Singer’s oil funding, at the time raised serious concerns about the “profound conflict of interest” which arises when a scientist claiming climate change is not happening is funded by Exxon.

He asked: “What would happen if the industry-funded ‘greenhouse skeptics’ just happened to stumble on a clue that the warming of the planet is, indeed, intensifying – and that the findings of the IPCC have validity? Would they be willing to change the direction of their research and, in the process, risk of cutting off their industry funding?”

But Singer used the SEPP not only to attack climate science but also to aggressively attack the latest research showing that even passive smoking could cause cancer, leading to millions of painful deaths – all the while being paid directly by the tobacco companies.

Tobacco benefits

The eminent scientist drafted a report called The EPA and the Science of Environmental Tobacco Smoke, which was commissioned and funded by the industry’s Tobacco Institute via the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.

A private memo sent to Walter Woodson, senior vice president at the Tobacco Institute, provided Singer’s curriculum vitae and suggested the industry lobby pay $20,000 for support in challenging the impacts of environmental tobacco smoke. A further internal document shows that the Tobacco Institute forwarded the cash to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute.

Singer also benefited less directly from the millions of dollars the tobacco firms were providing to American think tanks.

In January 1995, he moved into the offices of the Atlas Foundation, which had been set up by the libertarian think tank founder Antony Fisher in his tireless crusade against totalitarianism, the state and regulations.

Atlas posted on its website: “For those who believe public policy should be based on sound science, Dr. Singer offers a wealth of information, credibility and encouragement.”

The think tank was paid $475,000 by Philip Morris,the tobacco giant engaged in a fierce legal and public relations battle to deny the scientific consensus on tobacco smoke.

While Singer was just one pawn in a much bigger game being executed by the tobacco industry, it did not stop him learning from their public relations strategies. Later, he would apply their tactics to the task of undermining the public trust in climate science.

‘Sound science’

In June 1994, a year prior to Singer moving to Atlas, Philip Morris began working with the public relations firm APCO Associates to launch The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC). This coalition falsely claimed to be a “grassroots” organisation advocating “sound science” in policy decision making.

Burson Marsteller – the same PR company advising the oil industry – was hired to organise and promote seminars as part of what they called the Sound Science Project. The public relations experts told the tobacco company that funding would have to be found from other interest groups if the project was to have any chance of succeeding in influencing scientists.

“It is absolutely vital that we succeed in getting funding of the seminar from a broader group of sponsors than just PM[Philip Morris],” stated one secret memo. “Otherwise we would not be able to ensure the credibility of the seminar in relation to the scientists.”

“And if the seminar has not got that credibility, then outcomes of the meeting will not have great value,” it continued. This advice would prove hugely significant.

Corporate America

The tobacco companies took it on board. They began to reach out to other corporate giants whose profits were threatened by scientific research proving their products were dangerous to public health and the natural environment.

Corporate America began to resist the calls for regulations, and in the process discovered the tremendous value of free market ideology with its distrust of the state, as promoted by Friedrich Hayek, John Blundell, Fisher, the Koch brothers, and so on.

The arguments presented by tobacco to protect its financial interests would echo the sincere beliefs of the libertarians.

“Science should never be corrupted to achieve political ends,” they planned to tell the public. “Economic growth cannot afford to be held hostage to paternalistic, overregulation.”

Big Tobacco spent $100,000 setting up the Restoring Integrity to Science Coalition “to educate the media, public officials and the public about the dangers of ‘junk science’.”

The industry would also “create a shadow version of the US Competitive Council… It would promote the need to balance environmental regulation with economic growth.”

British regulations

Across the pond, the tobacco industry in Britain found some firm friends at free market think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). The pipe-smoking Lord Harris of High Cross had formed FOREST to directly challenge the government’s attempt to set increasingly stringent regulations to reduce smoking in the interests of public health.

The measures being suggested were a ban on advertising and also the curtailing of smoking in offices, pubs and public spaces. FOREST argued that such regulations would undermine the economy, close down businesses and, most importantly, were a totalitarian infringement on the rights of the private individual to choose to smoke if they so wish.

FOREST published Through the Smokescreen of “Science”: The Dangers of Politically Corrupted Science for Democratic Public Policy in December 1994.

Harris also chaired the advisory council with his IEA colleague professor David Myddelton, the popular author and journalist Auberon Waugh, and the soon-to-be disgraced MP Neil Hamilton.

Obvious partner

The IEA, with its long history of receiving funding from tobacco, and institutional ties to the Atlas Foundation in the US, would be an obvious partner in any initiative to bring the Sound Science initiative to Britain.

Tom Hockaday from APCO sent an internal memo to Matt Winokur at Philip Morris in March 1994, advising that a “TASSC-like group” should also be formed in Europe to counter the formulation of regulations of smoking.

Winokur confirmed that he knew Roger Bate at the IEA’s Environment Unit,but claimed that after almost 20 years he could not remember he worked with him to establish the European Science and Environment Forum during the ‘90s.   

He told me: “This sounds like a bad line from a movie but I really have no recollection.”

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist,founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press).He tweets at @EcoMontague. This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

==

Citizens for a Sound Economy

CSE, one of the third-party ‘anti-tax’ tobacco industry partners, was a think tank dedicated to free market economics. CSE (which split into AFP and FreedomWorks in 2004) was co-founded in 1984 by David Koch, of Koch Industries, and Richard Fink, former professor of economics at George Mason University, who has worked for Koch Industries since 1990.3 ,51 CSE supported the agendas of the tobacco and other industries, including oil, chemical, pharmaceutical and telecommunications, and was funded by them.52 In 2002, before Tea Party politics were widely discussed in the mainstream media, CSE started its US Tea Party (http://www.usteaparty.com) project, the website of which stated ‘our US Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated.’53 Between 1991 and 2002 the tobacco companies, mainly Philip Morris, provided CSE with at least US$5.3 million (see online supplementary table S3). Philip Morris gave CSE US$250 000 annually in the early 1990s to start six state chapters.41

Philip Morris (PM) designated CSE a ‘Category A’ public policy organisation for funding.54 ‘Category A’ organisations were ‘the largest and most important/sustained relationships’ that were assigned a ‘PM senior relationship manager’ to put them at the ‘centre of a network of information-sharing among PM people involved with the organisation’ and ‘[assure] systematic and ongoing relationship activities’.54 In response to an internal 1999 email asking whether CSE was worth its current level of funding, Philip Morris’ vice president of federal government affairs replied: They are adding this level of value. They have provided significant grassroots assistance, in the nature of several thousand calls to the Hill on the lawsuit [likely the federal RICO lawsuit against the major cigarette companies discussed below] direct lobbying on the lawsuit, some media as well as continuing a very useful level of activity on FET [federal excise tax]/prescription drugs [a proposal to expand Medicare and fund prescription drugs with a tobacco tax]. Throughout the August [Congressional] Recess they have been very active on our behalf in the field in key states with key Members.55

 ===

pac legal:For instance, it enlisted the organization (together with think-tanks like the Reason Foundation, Hoover Institute, Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute) to write op-ed pieces that were planted in newspapers attacking the**Environmental Protection Agency**(EPA) over its determination that**Environmental Tobacco Smoke**(ETS) was a carcinogen and its attempt to regulate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). (See page 4 of this planning document.**[5]**)

m o d

ch 5 secondhand smoke

Brown and Wm paid .5 mil to stallone to smoke in 4 films 139

sietz and singer ~ 142

scam: fake conf endrun peer review 154

1995 PM had record profits, best yield on dow 162

BS

Secondhand Smoke, Lung Cancer, and the Global Warming Debate

January 3, 2011

S. Fred Singer

Dr. S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric and space physicist, is one of the world's most respected and... (read full bio)

EMAIL

In 1993 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a report claiming secondhand smoke (SHS—also sometimes known as environmental tobacco smoke or ETS) causes 3,000 deaths from lung cancer every year in the United States. Anyone doubting this claim has been subject to attack and depicted as a toady of the tobacco lobby.

The tobacco smoking issue has also become a favorite tool for discrediting climate skeptics. A prime example is the book Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, which attacks several well-known senior physicists, including thelateDr. Fred Seitz, a formerpresident of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Physical Society, and (most recently) Rockefeller University.

Vast Tobacco Conspiracy

No matter what the environmental issue—ozone depletion, acid rain, pesticides, etc.—any and all scientific opposition based on objective facts is blamed on an imagined involvement with tobacco companies. None of this is true, of course. Oreskes and Conway claim to be academic historians, yet they have consistently ignored factual information, have not bothered to consult primary sources, have never interviewed any of the scientists they try to smear, and generally have operated in a completely unprofessional way.

The ultimate aim of these attacks has been to discredit skeptics of similarly unsupported global warming fears. I am a nonsmoker, find SHS to be an irritant and unpleasant, have certainly not been paid by Philip Morris or the tobacco lobby, LIE DOCUMENTED and have never joined any of their front organizations. I serve on the advisory board of an anti-smoking organization.

My father, who was a heavy smoker, died of emphysema while relatively young. I personally believe that SHS, in addition to being objectionable, cannot possibly be healthy. Yet people like Oreskes and Conway repeatedly try to divert attention from scientific facts by claiming I and other scientists who disagree with her on global warming are mere shills for tobacco companies.

Related Stories

• #### :{Muller:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: Attacks a Straw Man, Adds Nothing to Warming Debate

October 21, 2011

• #### Climate Change Weekly: Bombshell Book Documents IPCC Misconduct

October 20, 2011

• #### Republicans Choosing Environmental :{Extremist?:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:

October 20, 2011

• #### Job Creators, Farmers Struggling under California Warming Law

October 19, 2011

EPA’s Flawed Science

So what is the truth about SHS and lung cancer? EPA fudged their analysis to reach a predetermined conclusion,[st'd attack on sci] using thoroughly dishonest procedures. EPA "scientists" made three major errors: (1) They ignored "publication bias." (2) They arbitrarily shifted the statistical "confidence intervals." (3) They drew unjustified conclusions from a risk ratio that was barely greater than 1.0.

Since none of the epidemiological studies provided the clear answer they wanted, the EPA carried out a "meta-analysis," lumping together a selected group of studies. Unfortunately, this approach ignores publication bias, the tendency for investigators not to publish their studies if they do not find a positive result.

The EPA, in order to calculate a positive risk ratio, relaxed the confidence intervals from the generally accepted 95 percent standard to 90 percent—and admitted this openly.

Even so, their "risk ratio" was just a little above 1.0—whereas careful epidemiologists, because of the presence of confounding factors, generally ignore any result unless the risk ratio exceeds 2.0.

To sum up this somewhat technical discussion, I can state with some assurance that the EPA analysis—to paraphrase my former teacher, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli—is "not only wrong, but worthless."

Many Studies Cast Doubt

My assessments are independently confirmed by the Congressional Research Service (in report CRS-95-1115) and by a lengthy judicial analysis in 1998 by Judge William Osteen, [Winston-Salem, N.C.! ]each of which is available on the internet. Science journalist Michael Fumento presented, in 1993, a well-researched and eminently readable account in Investors Business Daily.

nb source: http://archive.tobacco.org/Documents/9511crsepa.html

[95-1115 SPR

CRS Report for Congress Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer Risk

C. Stephen Redhead DIEDIEDIE! Analyst in Life Sciences andRichard E. RowbergSenior Specialist in Science and Technology Science Policy Research Division November 14, 1995 Congressional Research Service/The Library of Congress

In the largest (in terms of statistical power), most detailed (in terms of results presented), and most transparent (in terms of information about its conduct) epidemiologic paper on SHS and mortality ever published in a major medical journal (in the May 17, 2003 issue of the British Medical Journal), UCLA Prof. James Enstromfound no significant relationship between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.

It is worth noting also that the World Health Organization, in a just-completed study reported in the British medical journal Lancet, gives a lung-cancer death rate for the United States, Canada, and Cuba of barely six hundred per year, which is only a fraction of the number of deaths the politicized EPA claims occur in the U.S. alone.

An independent study, published in BioMed Central in 2010 and supported by the Canadian National Cancer Institute and Canada's Cancer Society, found no noticeable lung-cancer effect from SHS in nonsmokers. Instead, the study found a significant effect from welding, use of paint thinners and solvents, and exposure to diesel exhaust, soot, and smoke from sources other than tobacco.

Afraid of Discussing Science

So what does this all mean? Wielding of the “tobacco weapon” regarding global warming or other scientific issues bespeaks the desperation of those who don't have any valid scientific arguments and wish to avoid public debate.

The other issue is the conduct of science and the integrity of the science process. The corruption of science in a worthy cause is still corruption, and it has led to its further corruption in an unworthy cause—the ideologically driven claim of anthropogenic global warming.

Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer (singer@sepp.org) is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, founding director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, and a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute. A longer version of this article first appeared in The American Thinker. Published with author’s permission.

1. ### Amazon.com: :{C:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. :{Stephen Redhead:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:: Books 

www.amazon.com/s?...C.%20Stephen%20Redhead...%20Stephen%20Re...‎

:{Results 1 - 12 of 15 - :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{PPACA: A Brief Overview of the Law, Implementation, and :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{Legal Challenges:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{ by Hinda Chaikind, Curtis W. Copeland, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{C:(style="font-weight:bold;background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{Stephen Redhead:(style="font-weight:bold;background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{ :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:**...**

2. ### Corporate Corruption of Science - :{C Stephen Redhead:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: 

sciencecorruption.com/ATN182/00272.html‎

:{Oct 10, 2010 - :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{OPINION ONLY.:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{ :{C Stephen Redhead:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. — A physiologist at the Congressional Research Center who became friends with Steven Milloy.:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{ He was :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:**...**

3. **C Stephen Redhead**

— A physiologist at the Congressional Research Center who became friends with Steven Milloy. He was embroiled in controversy over the Granvelle CRS report attacking the EPA's anti-tobacco stance. —  

Some key documents

• Redhead was a physiologist working with the Congressional Research Center,

1993 Apr 20:Congressional Research Service. Mortality and Economic Costs Attributable to Smoking and Alcohol Abuse, Report 93-426 SPR by C. Stephen Redhead, 

1994 Mar 8:The Report on the economic costs of ETS are presented to Congress by the report's authors, economists Jane G Gravelle and Dennis Zimmerman. This is dealing with the fairness of funding health care reform via cigarette taxes. 

1994 Mar 23:Gravelle and Redhead answer a request for information as to the source of the estimated premature 50,000 deaths from passive smoking. The EPA says these number 3,000 — but this refers only to lung cancer. The figure of50,000 came from the 21 July 1993 testimony of AMA's Health & Environment Subcommittee to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and they apparently took it from A Judson Wells estimates made in 1988. 

1995 May 24::Meeting over CRS report - [517496564]

1995 May 22:Worked on Draft report on the Second CRS workshop s with Dr Rowberg. They are formulating another CRS report into ETS and meeting with tobacco people for data. [528170134/0136]

1995 Jun 13::good friends with Steve Milloy - [525312064]

1995 Jun:A workshop to evaluate the draft turned into a "shouting match" —The CRS had relied on unpublished, industry-funded data on workplace exposure, 

    and one of the sponsors, Senator Ford, planned to use it to "kill OSHA's rule"

1995 Jun:CRS Workshop Draft on ETS and lung-cancer. This focuses on three epidemiological studies not considered by the EPA - Brownson, Stockwell and (1994) Fontham (1991 Fontham was considered by EPA) 

    It"departs from previous CRS analysis of the ETS issue in that it concludes that:

• • ETS satisfies the criteria for causality in relation to lung cancer risk,
  • There is a discernable risk of lung cancer for non-smoking spouses (with "heavy" smokers)
  • possible to calculate approx 700 to 1780 lung cancer deaths from ETS exposure in US.

    Says C Stephen Redhead and Richard E Rowberg did this Draft analysis, Previous reports and testimony were principally authored by Jane Gravelle. :{

}: 

1995 June 2:Brown & Williamson Tobacco have received a draft copy of a cover-note of the CRS Workshop's review of EPA's risk assessment on ETS, by C Stephen Redhead and Richard E Rowberg. This is a CRS internal audit, they are reviewing the original report made by their associate Jane Gravelle about the quality of the EPA's risk assessment of passive smoking. They say:

The main conclusions of the EPA risk assessment are:

    - ETS causes lung cancer in nonsmoking adults;
    - ETS is responsible for approximately 3,000 nonsmoker lung cancer deaths per year in the US;
    - ETS is classified as a Group A ("known human") carcinogen, and
    - ETS exposures are causally related to respiratory symptoms and disease in children.

They also characterise the previous Gravelle & Zimmermann report as:

Previous CRS analyses of the EPA's position concluded that the statistical data relied upon by the EPA do not support the claim that ETS is a Group A carcinogen.

They then examine the evidence used by the EPA.

The report was heavily criticized for a number of shortcomings. One criticism, pertinent to the currant CRS workshop Draft, was that the EPA did not include in its analyses the data from two publicly available spousal smoking studies. Those studies were conducted by Brownson, at al. (1992) and Stockwell, at al. (1992). 

    It was argued that had the EPA included the data from the Brownson, et al. and Stockwell, et al. studies, it would have been unable to reach its conclusion on ETS.

It then focussed on these two studies, and included a third, the 1994 Fontham study. 

    It comes to the conclusion that all three of the new studies support the EPA and that:

• • passive smoking can be said to cause lung cancer
  • heavy smokers can give their non-smoking spouses lung-cancer
  • this probably results in between 700 and 1780 lung-cancer deaths each year in the US.

:{

}: 

[B&W and BAT would probably have received this draft via the APCO/Steve Milloy's Issueswatch operation]

1995 Jun 13:good friends with Steve Milloy - [525312064]

1995 Nov:Reference: "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer Risk" 

    C. Stephen Redhead, Analyst in Life Sciences and Richard E. Rowberg, Senior Specialist in Science and Technology. Science Policy Research Division. Congressional Research Service, November 1995

1995 Nov 17:(Faxed from CIAR) "A report to be released withing a few days.. cast doubt on ETS serious cancer risk "An early draft of the CRS report, done at the request of Waxman and Ford, came down hard on OSHA, concluding the risks are significant only for highly exposed groups such as spouses of heavy smokers 

1996 Jan:/E In early 1996 the CRS had written to Philip Morris wanting to know what they were doing about underage access to cigarettes.

1996 Jul:/E An Americans for Non-Smokers's Rights (ANR) newsletter reports that Redhead told a Canadian newspaper that the tobacco industry was mis-using his report paper. He said the report agreed with the EPA's carcinogenic classificiation. [Actually, they confuse two CRS reports, one which does and one which doesn't.

      Redhead appears genuine, but he initially supported Gravelle in the dubious initial pro-tobacco CRC report on ETS, and he may later have been conned by his friendship with Steve Milloy.] [2057980926]

1996 Feb 9.: S Katherine Hammond of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, writes a scathing commenary in her peer review of theWorkshop Draft of ETS and Lung Cancer (which had been written by C Stephen Redhead and Richard E Rowberg) at the CRS:

The May 24 Draft of the Congressional Research Service report on Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer is superficial, inaccurate, and careless in the extreme. It will require extensive revision before it is of acceptable quality to be released anywhere. 

    As the report is currently written, I would reject it if it were submitted to a peer-reviewed journal; furthermore, I would find this I unacceptable work from a graduate student. This document is an embarrassment to the Library of Congress and the Congressional Research Service. As a taxpayer , I am shocked and deeply disturbed by this shoddy, sloppy report from the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. 

The report reflects an inadequate understanding not only of epidemiology and risk assessment, but, more fundamentally, of science itself.

[There are another 13 pages of detailled criticism in the same vein]

Legacy Tobacco Documents Library : BY :{C:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. :{STEPHEN REDHEAD:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: **...** 

legacy.library.ucsf.edu/.../kgn01d00;...2DFF3B8876AD624B7E501D44...‎

Title, BY :{C:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. :{STEPHEN REDHEAD:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: AND RICHARD E. ROWBERG, JUNE 5, 1995 (950605).; ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE AND LUNG CANCER **...**

===**GMI**

**Richard E. Rowberg** is Associate Executive Director for Communications in the Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences of the National Research Council of the National Academies.

Select Works

• "Science Advice to Congress," Dr. Michael Gough, Daniel S. Greenberg and Richard E. Rowberg, May 22, 2006

The National Academies comprise the National Academy of Sciences (NAS, chartered in 1863), the National Academy of Engineering (chartered in 1964), and the Institute of Medicine (chartered in 1971). These three organisations are made up of elected members who have established outstanding credentials in the fields of science, engineering and medicine. The organisations were also established to advise the Federal Government on matters of science and technology. The operating arm of the NAS, the National Research Council (NRC), was established in 1916 to carry out these advisory studies. The Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences (DEPS) is one of the five Divisions of the NRC , and carries out a number of studies each year, primarily for the US Departments of Defence and Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the NASA.

How has your career shaped your interests in science and engineering? What are your main responsibilities within the Division?

I began my career in science with a PhD in Physics from UCLA. After spending five years as a research engineer and Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas in Austin, I began working on science policy. I spent the next 26 years with agencies of the US Congress – the former Office of Technology Assessment and the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.I have been at the National Academies since 2002.

The shift to science policy required a change of emphasis from science and engineering (S&E) research to an understanding of how scientific and engineering developments interact with public policy. As a consequence, my interests became much broader and encompassed other areas, such as economics and political science, but not nearly as deep as is required for S&E research. Within DEPS, I am responsible for helping to manage the Division’s operations including assisting with various projects and serving as an Acting Director for various study boards.

cq researcher

cqr 1999

Secondhand Smoke Next Hit a Hazy Issue

Joseph Avallone, Joseph Yaniak and Robin Taylor have each worked for 15 years or more in casinos in Atlantic City, N.J. Avallone has never smoked, and Taylor and Yaniak quit years ago. But they breathe in a lot of tobacco Previous HitsmokeNext Hit. And they believe it puts them at increased risk of lung cancer, heart disease or other illnesses.

A number of governmental studies, including a major report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1993, support the view that econdhand smoke...is hazardous to health. Most Americans apparently share that opinion. In a Gallup Poll completed in late September, more than 80 percent of the 1,039 people surveyed said they believe that Previous Hitsecondhand smokeNext Hit is either very harmful (43 percent) or somewhat harmful (39 percent) for adults.

The tobacco industry disagrees. It has a handful of scientific studies to support its stance as well as a federal court decision throwing out the EPA report because of procedural and substantive defects. And despite being on the defensive, the industry has been able to fend off some regulatory initiatives and to slow down lawsuits -- such as one brought by Avallone, Yaniak and Taylor -- that seek to force tobacco companies to pay damages or provide medical monitoring for workers exposed to Previous Hitsecondhand smokeNext Hit.

Anti-smoking groups can count many successes in their fight against what the government calls “environmental tobacco Previous HitsmokeNext Hit” (Previous HitETSNext Hit). Footnote 1

On the other hand, only one state -- California -- meets the goal set by federal health officials 20 years ago of eliminating exposure to Previous HitETSNext Hit by banning indoor smoking or limiting it to separately ventilated areas. And the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) drew so much criticism when it proposed regulations in 1994 to bar smoking in most businesses or limit it to designated areas that the agency had to scrap the proposal.

In court battles, plaintiffs have only one victory -- a partial one at that -- in suits against the tobacco industry over Previous Hitsecondhand smokeNext Hit. Four tobacco companies -- Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard -- agreed in October 1997 to pay $349 million to resolve part of a class action brought in Florida by flight attendants who claimed their health had been damaged by exposure to Previous HitETSNext Hit. The settlement included $300 million to fund a research center on smoking-related disease and $49 million to the lawyers who brought the suit. Individual flight attendants can still bring separate damage claims.

Juries have returned verdicts for tobacco companies in two individual suits brought by the families of lung cancer victims who blamed the deaths on Previous Hitsecondhand smoke. Juries in both cases -- one in Indiana in March 1998, the other in Mississippi last summer -- concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that Previous Hitsecondhand smokeNext Hit caused the diseases.

The casino workers' suit, filed in a state court in New Brunswick, N.J., in April 1998, did not claim any present injuries. Instead, they said they feared their health was being compromised by exposure to Previous Hitsecondhand smokeNext Hit. Footnote 2

Meanwhile, the scientific debate continues. The EPA is appealing the July 1998 decision by federal Judge William Osteen in Winston-Salem, N.C., to “vacate” its 1993 report on Previous Hitsecondhand smokeNext Hit. Footnote 3'

Most recently, tobacco industry defenders have pointed to a 1998 study by an affiliate of the World Health Organization as discounting the dangers of Previous Hitsecondhand smokeNext Hit. In a study of 650 lung cancer patients in Europe, researchers for the International Agency for Research on Cancer found only “weak evidence” of a relationship between lung cancer and exposure to Previous HitETSNext Hit. Footnote 4

Another 1998 report by the New York-based American Council on Science and Health, a nonprofit consumer-education consortium, concluded somewhat similarly that Previous Hitsecondhand smokeNext Hit is “a weak risk factor” for lung cancer or heart disease among adults. But the report also said that exposure to Previous HitETSNext Hit increases the risks for respiratory ailments among adults and for respiratory infections, ear infections, asthma and other respiratory symptoms among children.

The scientific evidence, the report concluded, “supports the adaptation of measures designed to reduce or prevent exposure to Previous HitETSNext Hit,” such as increasing ventilation and limiting levels of exposure through indoor smoking restrictions. Footnote 5

[1] For background, see Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (1996); Richard L. Worsnop, “Indoor Air Pollution,”The CQ Researcher, Oct. 27,1995, p. 959.

[2] For background, see The New York Times, May 25, 1998, p. B1.

[3] The case is Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corporation v. Environmental Protection Agency.

[4] Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 90 (1998), pp. 1440-1450.

[5] American Council on Science and Health, “Environmental Tobacco Previous HitSmokeNext Hit: Health Risk or Health Hype?” 1998.

ByKenneth Jost

Smith's guide to research on smoking

Smoking Issue Resources

The reason behind this section is that, in spite of what is considered "common knowledge", very LITTLE is known about the effects of smoking. It seems quite clear that there is NO significant damaging result from ETS (environmental tobacco smoke, or "second-hand" smoke.

The most significant parts of the broad issue are:

• That the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has deliberately and knowingly deceived the public on the effects of smoking (as on other products).
• That the FDA has pepetrated the "War on Tobacco" as a means of increasing their regulatory power.
• That the effect of the near-religious "War on Tobacco" has had the effect of squelching research that might possibly demonstrate that the FDA claims are false.
• That smoking has been blamed for a variety of health effects, resulting in a major loss of research toward finding the REAL causes of those problems.
• That the American public has been panicked and coerced into a major reduction in tobacco usage, while there is some indication that the reduction itself may havenegative health effects.

Like most people, you may have never had a chance to read actual comments from research studies. The link just below will take you to a site with a lot of well-documented research results. See if you can guess why we've never read about any of THESE studies in the newspapers or heard them reported on the TV News.

**Excerpts from Smoking-related Research**

CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

Congressional Research Service (CRS), part of the United States Library of Congress, provides nonpartisan information on any subject of interest to Congress. CRS products undergo careful review for accuracy, thoroughness, technical soundness, balance, nonpartisanship and objectivity.

Penny Hill Press

About the Products and Services of Penny Hill Press:

We offer same-day shipment of all publications of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the 741-person, $62 million-per-year "think tank" that works exclusively for Members and committees of the United States Congress. Subscribers to the monthly Congressional Research Report get same-day shipment of any of more than 1,000 studies and other publications produced by CRS for $2.75 each plus 2-1/2 cents per page. Nonsubscribers pay $47 per order (up to 5 documents); students $17 for a single document or $27 for up to 5 documents.

Penny Hill Press

6440 Wiscasset Road

Bethesda, MD 20816

Phone: 301-229-8229

Fax: 301-229-6988

E-Mail: pennyhill@clark.net

Descriptions of a few Congressional Research Service reports

TOBACCO-RELATED ACTIVITIES AND PROGRAMS IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

By C. Stephen Redhead, Science Policy Research Division. January 7, 1997. 5 pages. This report presents, in table format, federal government tobacco-related activities, programs, and funding by agency. Order No. 97-64 SPR.

ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE AND LUNG CANCER RISK

By C. Stephen Redhead and Richard E. Rowberg, Senior Specialist in Science and Technology Policy. 75 pages. In 1992 the Environmental Protection Agency classified environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) as a known human carcinogen and estimated that ETS exposure is responsible for about 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year among adult nonsmokers. The Ocupational Safety and Health Administration also estimated the lung cancer risk from workplace ETS exposure as part of its proposed indoor air quality rule. This report analyzes the uncertainties in ETS cancer risk assissments using epidemiological studies of non-smoking women married to smoking husbands. Order No. 95-1115 SPR.

TOBACCO ADVERTISING: WHETHER THE FDA'S RESTRICTIONS VIOLATE FREEDOM OF SPEECH

By Henry Cohen, American Law Division. Updated May 23, 1997. 16 pages. This report considers whether the FDA's new final rule restricting tobacco advertising violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. Order No. 96-825 A.

SMOKING-A FACT SHEET

By Scott M. Becker and C. Stephen Redhead, Science Policy Research Division. July 25, 1996. 3 pages. This fact sheet outlines recent estimates of the prevalence of cigarette smoking in the United States. It also summarizes the health effects and health costs of smoking. Order No. 96-651 SPR.

Some reports from the Cato Institute on the Smoking Issue

Smoking, Insurance, and Social Cost by Robert E. McCormick, Robert Tollison, and Richard E. Wagner

Robert E. McCormick is a professor of economics at Clemson University.

Regulation, 1997, Vol. 20, No. 3. Published four times a year by the Cato Institute

Summary: If successful, the current "corrective tax" attack on tobacco will likely next target other public policy debates, for example, concerning alcohol use, diet, or other forms of behavior said to have social costs., for example, in a 1989 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that cigarettes are presently overtaxed and alcohol undertaxed, as compared with...

Warning: The Tobacco Settlement Is Dangerous to Your Liberty by Robert A. Levy

Robert A. Levy is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute. July 29, 1997

Summary:by Robert A. Levy Robert A. Levy is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute. The tobacco settlement is a shameful proposal, extorted by public officials who have perverted the rule of law to tap the deep pockets of an unpopular industry. In a 68-page "Proposed Resolution," the industry agreed to pony up $370 billion, submit to Food and Drug Administration...

TOBACCO SETTLEMENT NOTHING BUT A SHAKEDOWN by Robert A. Levy

Summary:In addition, tobacco companies will be assessed a penalty in the years 2002, 2004, and 2007 if the nation fails to meet respective goals of 30 percent, 50 percent, and 60 percent declines in youth smoking. Therefore, a full 75-cent price hike (roughly 40 percent) would reduce the number of cigarettes sold by about 16 percent. In addition, cigarettes will contain a more dire warning (cigarettes...

Robert A. Levy is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute.

Addendum to Cato Policy Analysis No. 275 ,  June 27, 1997

TOBACCO MEDICAID LITIGATION: Snuffing Out the Rule of Law by Robert A. Levy

Summary:Incredibly, the act originally provided that Florida was not required to identify the individual recipients of Medicaid payments; instead, the state could seek recovery for all recipients, anonymously, as a group. Third, the state "shall not be required to . . . identify the individual recipients for which payment has been made, but rather can proceed to seek recovery based upon payments...

Robert A. Levy is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute.

Cato Policy Analysis No. 275,  June 20, 1997

Do Smokers Have Rights? The Science and Politics of Tobacco On October 3, the Cato Instituters F. A. Hayek Auditorium was the setting for a seminar, "Cutting through the Smoke: The Science and Politics of Tobacco." Among the speakers were Jane Gravelle, an economist with the Congressional Research Service; Jacob Sullum, articles editor of National Review; Sheldon Richman, senior editor at the Cato Institute; and moderator William A. Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute. The views presented here do not necessarily reflect those of the Congressional Research Service.

Summary:Fifty billion dollars a year is not the increase in medical costs due to smoking. You hear that passive smoking might increase your risk 20 percent, 50 percent, 70 percent, but what you don't know is that lung cancer among nonsmoking individuals is a very, very rare disease.) A major problem is that the government pays some people's medical bills, so the costs of medical care do not figure into a...

Secondhand Smoke Facts and Fantasy 

Summary:In terms of the statistical significance of the effects, 10 of the 11 studies cited to justify the regulation fail to indicate a statistically significant linkage. Overall, smokers impose higher medical-care costs of 46 per pack; higher sick-leave costs of 1 per pack; greater life-insurance costs of 11 per pack; additional costs due to fires of 2 per pack; and foregone Social Security taxes on...

Regulation Vol. 18, No. 3, 1995 © 1995 Cato Institute

W. Kip Viscusi is the George G. Allen Professor of Economics at Duke University.

Excerpts from CATO reports

Smoking, Insurance, and Social Cost

by Robert E. McCormick, Robert Tollison, and Richard E. Wagner

Robert E. McCormick is a professor of economics at Clemson University. Robert Tollison, and Richard E Wagner.

Regulation, 1997, Vol. 20, No. 3. Published four times a year by the Cato Institute. Copyright 1997 Cato Institute.

Conclusion (Excerpted)

Two clear conclusions stand out. First, the issue of nonsmokers subsidizing smokers only arises because medical and retirement insurance pools the two groups and does not differentiate between them when assigning costs or distributing benefits. Those are transfer costs. And second, taxing smokers might remove their subsidy and real externalities, but it does not help nonsmokers; it results in an actual loss of wealth to the economy. It was assumed for the sake of argument that health insurers cannot separate smokers and nonsmokers in current programs. But insurers in other markets separate risk classes by all manner of characteristics, including age, gender, health background, and job category. The fact that there are not differential rates for smokers could mean that there are no externalities worth internalizing. Smokers and nonsmokers may be charged common prices for health insurance, in contrast to the prevalence of differential pricing for life insurance, because there is no sound actuarial basis for seeking to place smokers and nonsmokers into distinct categories. And if there are actuarial differences between smokers and nonsmokers, as is assumed in the new economics of smoking, the external costs those differences entail could be internalized for about a penny a pack. Or, there might be externalities and good reason to treat smokers and nonsmokers differently in medical and retirement programs. That suggests that government regulation of insurance markets prevents such internalizing efforts. Thus it is a political, not and economic defect, that keeps smokers and nonsmokers pooled in government medical and retirement systems. Politics is the cause of the subsidy.

Warning: The Tobacco Settlement Is Dangerous to Your Liberty

by Robert A. Levy

Robert A. Levy is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute. 

July 29, 1997

(Excerpted)

there is no justification whatsoever for the largest component of the monetary settlement, reimbursement of state Medicaid outlays. To fatten their own coffers, states have sued to recover expenditures for Medicaid recipients with "tobacco-related diseases" -- without even showing that an injured party smoked, or that smoking caused his illness. Furthermore, authoritative studies have concluded that excise taxes on cigarettes already exceed public costs attributable to smoking.

http://www.smith.mn/resource.html

==

Secondhand Smoke Information Packet

Secondhand Smoke: The Science

Secondhand Smoke: Tobacco Industry Attacks

Secondhand Smoke: Worker Health

Ventilation and Air Filtration: The Science

Don't Buy the Ventilation Lie

Visual Summary of IAQ/Cotinine Studies

Tobacco Industry Sound Bites and Responses

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), "Setting the record straight: secondhand smoke is a preventable health risk," Washington, D.C.: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), June 1994.

World Health Organization (WHO), "Passive smoking does cause lung cancer, do not let them fool you," World Health Organization (WHO) Web Site, March 9, 1998.

Glantz, S.A., "The "CRS Report"," San Francisco: University of California, San Francisco, [1996].

Muggli, M.E.; Hurt, R.D.; Blanke, D., "Science for hire: a tobacco industry strategy to influence public opinion on secondhand smoke," Nictoine & Tobacco Research 5(3): 303-314, June 2003.

Glantz, S.A., "What's in cigarette smoke. In: Tobacco: Biology and Politics.," Waco: Health Edco, 1992.

According to an article published in U.S. News Online, Judge William L. Osteen, who once lobbied on behalf of tobacco growers, overturned the 1993 report on secondhand smoke produced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The article stated that the tobacco industry had publicly declared health risks from secondhand smoke to be controversial, but its own internal documents "suggest that the industry had evidence for years that passive smoking was dangerous and consistently downplayed the risks." Former Philip Morris (PM) scientist William Farone stated, "The entire issue concerning sidestream smoke... has been minimized by the industry." Farone has stated that the industry has long been aware that NNK, a toxic component of cigarette smoke, is present in nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke. A 1978 survey for the Tobacco Institute (TI) by the Roper Organization stated, "[Passive smoking] we see as the most dangerous development yet to the viability of the tobacco industry that has yet occurred." A 1993 internal document from BAT Industries listed as a company goal "Conduct research to anticipate and refute claims about health effects of passive smoking." In 1981, a PM executive urged funding studies to "with the intent to publish data which refutes specific assertions by the antismoking forces." (Source:Headden, S., "Secondhand smokescreen: tobacco firms worried for years about risks of passive smoke," U.S. News Online, August 3, 1998.)

According to internal documents made public in the Minnesota lawsuit, the tobacco industry paid 13 scientists $156,000 to write letters critical of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s 1993 report on the health hazards of secondhand smoke. One biostatistician was paid $10,000 to write a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). A former government official was paid $6,000 for a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal. The letter writing campaign was orchestrated by the Tobacco Institute (TI), and the law firms of Covington & Burling and Shook, Hardy & Bacon. Editors of several of the publications which received letters indicated that even when the authors disclosed ties to the tobacco industry, the editors were unaware that they had been paid thousands of dollars to write the letters. In addition, letters go through much less scrutiny than articles before being published. In many instances the letters were either drafted or edited by tobacco industry law firms. Some scientists who were paid to write letters were: Dr. Gio Batta Gori, former top official at the National Cancer Institute (NCI); biostatistician Nathan Mantel of American University; John Todhunter, former EPA consultant; and tobacco consultant W. Gary Flamm. (Source:Hanners, D., "Scientists were paid to write letters: tobacco industry sought to discredit EPA report," Pioneer Press, August 4, 1998.)

In 1996, an attempt in Waterloo, Ontario, to pass a regional smoking bylaw came under attack by council members, who cited an article that appeared in a hospitality establishment journal.The article stated that a new study by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) did not find secondhand tobacco smoke to be a health hazard. Stephen Redhead of the CRS disputed this statement, and stated that, in fact, his report does not dispute the claim that secondhand smoke is a "known, class A (human) carcinogen." (Source:Jalsevac, P., "Second-hand smoke study misused, scientist says," Kitchener-Waterloo Record: B1, February 8, 1996.)

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/15/business/judge-who-ruled-pro-tobacco-named-to-hear-companies-suit.html

A lawsuit by the nation's five largest tobacco companies seeking to block the Food and Drug Administration from regulating cigarettes has been assigned to a Federal judge who ruled favorably for the tobacco industry in a lawsuit involving the Environmental Protection Agency.And as a lawyer before reaching the bench, the judge successfully represented the heir to a tobacco fortune in a stock-manipulation suit.

The judge, William L. Osteen Sr., is one of five in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina who could have drawn the case, filed last Thursday. A separate suit filed in the court by five advertising groups last week has also been assigned to Judge Osteen.

In May, Judge Osteen ruled that the tobacco industry had legal standing to bring a suit challenging the E.P.A.'s 1993 classification of second-hand smoke as a carcinogen. And in 1994, he found that the agency's ruling could be reviewed by his court.

In 1979, he successfully represented an R. J. Reynolds tobacco heir, Smith Bagley, who was acquitted on charges that he and four other defendants had criminally manipulated the stock of the Washington Group, a diversified textile concern.

The tobacco companies' current suit against the F.D.A., filed in the heart of tobacco country, seeks an injunction against the F.D.A. in its proposal, announced by President Clinton, to regulate the sale, promotion and distribution of cigarettes.

Daniel W. Donahue, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, one of those suing the F.D.A., said that North Carolina "is the only jurisdiction that makes any sense" because all five companies have tobacco operations there.

Opponents of tobacco saw a different motivation. "The tobacco companies have found a court willing to defend the Southern institution of tobacco," said Richard A. Daynard, chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, a nonprofit anti-smoking group.

"I think the industry expects to have a series of favorable preliminary rulings, and at the very least, as much delay as they can possibly get," Mr. Daynard said. "Among Southern lawyers it's called home cooking, helping out the friends and neighbors."

A spokesman for Judge Osteen declined comment.

Also, a spokesman for the F.D.A. said the agency would have no comment on Judge Osteen's assignment to the case, or on whether the agency would seek a change of venue.

Maura Ellis, a spokeswoman for R. J. Reynolds, commented, "It's not that we shopped a judge; this is the only district we could have filed suit in."

Mr. Donahue of Reynolds said that Judge Osteen "is fair right down the middle, and there is absolutely nothing to the contention that he would favor the tobacco companies." He said the judge had ruled against the tobacco industry recently in an action related to the giant class-action suit that has been mounted against the industry in Federal court in New Orleans.

Joseph P. Creekmore, the District Court clerk, said he had assigned Judge Osteen to the case because it was "related to a previous case that was filed involving regulation of tobacco by the Federal Government." He added that he had decided that the advertisers' suit should be assigned to Judge Osteen as well.

Mr. Daynard contended that it was "a strange idea that it's a related matter." He said, "Environmental tobacco smoke has nothing to do with whether the F.D.A. has the authority to restrict the sale or marketing of cigarettes to kids."

The assignment was made "according to our standard operating procedures," Mr. Creekmore said.

The E.P.A.-related lawsuit -- called Flue Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corporation et al. v. the United States Environmental Protection Agency et al., was filed in Greensboro, N.C., in 1993.

Mr. Creekmore said the E.P.A. case had originally been given to Judge Osteen under the court's standard rotation in which judges are assigned cases by chance. Five judges were eligible to hear that case, he said.

Mr. Daynard termed a 1994 decision by Judge Osteen "unprecedented," in ruling that his court could review the action of the E.P.A., which in 1993 declared that environmental tobacco smoke -- known popularly as second-hand smoke -- caused diseases including lung cancer.

On May 24, Judge Osteen ruled that the plaintiffs in the case had legal standing to bring suit. "That goes against clear Supreme Court precedent," Mr. Daynard, a law professor at Northeastern University, contended. "I've studied administrative law for 25 years and I think they're both egregious decisions," he continued.

Ms. Ellis of R. J. Reynolds replied, "It's outrageous to question the impartiality of any judge before we've had the first ruling out of his court."

The companies seeking an injunction in the Greensboro court were the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, whose parent company is the London-based B.A.T. Industries; the Liggett Group Inc., a subsidiary of Brooke Group Ltd.; the Lorillard Tobacco Company, a unit of the Loews Corporation; Philip Morris Companies Inc., and R. J. Reynolds, a subsidiary of the RJR Nabisco Holdings Corporation. Also suing was Coyne-Beahmn, an advertising agency that said it derived substantial revenue from tobacco.

In a separate lawsuit, which has also been assigned to Judge Osteen, the Association of National Advertisers, four other advertising trade groups and a magazine publishing group challenged the F.D.A. proposal on First Amendment grounds.

Judge Osteen, 65, was appointed to the Federal bench by President George Bush in 1991. Judge Osteen was the minority leader of the North Carolina Legislature from 1960 to 1964, the United States Attorney in Greensboro from 1969 to 1973, and was in private practice from 1974 until he became a judge.

A spokeswoman for the Greensboro law firm of Judge Osteen's son, William L. Osteen Jr., said that Judge Osteen had represented Mr. Bagley.

A jury found Mr. Bagley -- a socially prominent resident of the Georgetown section of Washington who was a major backer of Jimmy Carter's 1976 bid for the Presidency -- not guilty of all charges relating to supposed efforts to inflate the value of his business, the Washington Group, in August 1979.