DISHONESTY, OR JUST PLAIN INCOMPETENCE?

Recently, the Cabaret Alliance of Manitoba wrote a letter to the British Columbia Workers' Compensation Board, asking, among other things, on what scientific grounds the draconian smoking bans that forbid smoking everywhere in BC except in the home are based.

The thorough reply from the BC WBC is, to date, among the best collections of junk science and misrepresentations of evidence ever seen in one single package.

The reply from BC WBC is peculiar in its detailed response to the questions. The WCB bureaucrats, in the attempt to do a good job of constructing credibility through an intimidating amount of information, have concentrated a large number of antismoking elements together in one single letter, setting the stage for a massive debunking and exposure of either their incompetence or, worse, their dishonesty.

Unfortunately, as the WCB letter says, this massive amount of misinformation is disseminated to stakeholders, and the public in general, through web sites, seminars, and toll-free phone lines to those who expect honest and competent information from a governmental body. Unfortunately, antismoking and honesty are mutually exclusive - and honesty is losing big time.

Though the President of the Cabaret Alliance of Manitoba has already sent an appropriate reply to BC WCB, we could not resist, the temptation to address in detail the 28 incorrect, false, or twisted points cited in the reply, for such a concentration of misinformation does not come our way every day -- even from the antitobacco cartel. So, for those who are interested, we have addressed the BC WCB letter point by point. The average reader may find this boring and overwhelming, but such a debunking is necessary and meant to demonstrate the incredible amount of crooked information on which smoking bans are based, wherever they are in the world. If you are interested in the exposure of these lies, click here.

In short and in truth, the "overwhelming mountain of evidence" against ETS can be synthesised as follows:

1. Of the actual 48 epidemiological studies done on ETS in the home, where one would have the longest exposure, 39 show NO statistically significant risk to non-smoking spouses, with EIGHT of these showing a LOWERED risk. Only nine show a small but statistically significant risk. ^[1]

2. Of the 22 actual epidemiological studies done on ETS in the workplace, 15 show NO statistically significant risk, 2 show a LOWERED risk for males and 2 show a LOWERED risk for females and only three show a small but statistically significant risk. ^[2]

3. The most recent and one of the largest and best conducted of the above studies was the IARC study, funded by the WHO, and it showed no statistically significant risk in the home, in the workplace or in social situations. ^[3]

>The EPA report, upon which the California EPA report was based (though the WCB, like the rest of the antitobacco cartel, portrays it as two completely independent studies coming to the same conclusions), claimed a small risk for non-smokers married to smokers, but that portion of the EPA report has been rendered void by a U.S. federal court. The EPA report did NOT include heart disease risks in its calculations of risk factors. In fact, no U.S. government agency officially endorses ANY claims of ETS risk for heart disease in non-smokers.

>No U.S. Surgeon General's report has ever endorsed the notion that ETS causes heart disease in non-smokers.

>The NCI monograph 10, cited by the board, is identical to the California EPA report, which was in turn based on the federal court-vacated U.S. EPA report. Once again, the California EPA report and Monograph 10 are listed separately as totally independent studies to add to "the mountain of evidence" against ETS.

>In actuality, the "health risks" from ETS, though existing, are infinitesimally small.

For example and to put the supposed "risk" of ETS and lung cancer in perspective:

• The odds for being injured at one's bathroom sink or toilet are 1 in 4500.
• The odds for getting hurt in the shower are one in 1500.
• The odds of being injured by beds, mattresses or pillows are one in 650.

According to Dr. Donald Austin, one of the principal researchers on the Fontham study upon which the US and California EPA reports heavily relied, the odds of a non-smoker getting lung cancer from a smoking spouse are one in 16,393. ^[4]

Wait staff face vastly greater risks of being killed in a traffic accident on the way to work than they ever do from contracting lung cancer from ETS. ^[5]

>It is also interesting to note that most of what is available on ETS concerns smoking in the HOME, not in the workplace. We call the attention of our readers to the article "News You Won't Read in Your Newspaper," by Martha Perske. As you will see, the greater part of the studies that focus on the workplace end up concluding: "not statistically significant." Another interesting piece, still by Perske, is "OSHA tries again." The article indicates that OSHA STILL doesn't have enough to dictate a national workplace smoking ban and neither has the national government of Canada (obviously, or BC wouldn't be the one banning smoking in restaurants and bars in the province).

Similar odds apply to heart disease, and many other "ETS-related" diseases. The BC WCB simply overstates the dangers by many orders of magnitude to justify intrusion in private business and prohibition.

1. The references for this are all the ETS studies listed on FORCES INTERNATIONAL website. By counting them up, the reader can come up with the above figures.

2. The references for the this are all the ETS studies listed on FORCES INTERNATIONAL website. By counting them up, the reader can come up with the above figures. Also, see "News you won't find in your daily paper".

3. THE STUDY THE WHO DID NOT WANT YOU TO SEE -- MULTICENTER CASE-CONTROL STUDY OF EXPOSURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE AND LUNG CANCER IN EUROPE - International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France -- '' RESULTS: ETS exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. The OR for ever exposure to spousal ETS was 1.16. No clear dose-response relationship could be demonstrated for cumulative spousal ETS exposure. The OR for ever exposure to workplace ETS was 1.17, with possible evidence of increasing risk for increasing duration of exposure. No increase in risk was detected in subjects whose exposure to spousal or workplace ETS ended more than 15 years earlier. Ever exposure to ETS from other sources was not associated with lung cancer risk. ''

To download the entire study CLICK HERE. To read this piece, you must have installed Adobe Acrobat in your computer. This format allows you to quickly download the document, and to reprint it in its original form. Click here to get Adobe Acrobat.

4. Fortune Magazine, July 11, l994. Here is what Dr. Austin said: "In other words," says Dr. Austin, "there are 48 chances in one million that a nonsmoker married to another nonsmoker will get lung cancer in any one year. This figure rises to 0.000061 if the nonsmoker's spouse is a smoker. Stated another way, there is one chance in 20,833 of getting lung cancer in a year if your spouse is a nonsmoker, and the probability increases to one chance in 16,393 if he is a smoker."

4. At a press conference conducted by EPA ETS Science Advisory Panel Chair Dr. Lippmann, when asked about the risk from ETS, Lippmann replied, that it was "probably much less than you took to get here through Washington traffic" (Washington Times, April 19, 1991).