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WANDA HAMILTON
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American Cancer Society
Admits "Mistake" in Ad
Date of original release: 8/10/98 |
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"Secondhand Smoke Kills more Americans each year than cocaine, crack,
heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fires and AIDS," the headline of a
half-page ad in the March 10, l998, Miami Herald screamed in big, bold letters.
Below was a listing for the number of deaths in each category. The only figure in boldface
was: "Secondhand Smoke - 53,000."
As someone who has closely followed the scientific
claims surrounding the smoking issue, I wasn't particularly surprised to see the 53,000
figure. Though no U.S. government agency publishes or endorses it, this number pops up
regularly in anti-tobacco ads whenever and wherever the push is on for a smoking ban. And,
indeed, the purpose of the Herald ad was to campaign for removal of the preemption
clause in the Florida Clean Indoor Air Act, thus enabling city and county commissions to
enact local smoking bans. Predictably, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart
Association and the American Lung Association were the ad's sponsors.
What surprised me was the citation for the 53,000
figure: "U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ETS Compendium, l986 data." I
knew the "official" EPA number was 3,000, not 53,000, and according to such
independent analysts as the Congressional Research Service, even the EPA estimate of 3,000
deaths appeared to be too high, given the available scientific data.
Determined to get to the bottom of the puzzling
citation, I phoned the 800 number provided in the ad. It connected me to a voice-mail
recording at the American Cancer Society (ACS). I left my name, phone number and a brief
inquiry about the EPA citation.
I also e-mailed David Lawrence, publisher of the Miami
Herald. Lawrence responded that he would share my concerns with the vice president of
advertising, as he did each time I sent him an update.
Several days later, Marcia Nenno of the ACS
contacted me. She seemed discomfited by my questions about the citation. First, she said
the 53,000 figure was actually from the l986 EPA risk assessment. Then, she claimed that
it was from the EPA report. Finally, she said the source was a Surgeon General's report.
Based on my familiarity with those reports, I replied that it was from none of those
sources.
She insisted there was documentation and asked if I
would like her to send it to me. "Yes, indeed," I responded.
A packet from the ACS arrived more than a week
later. The explanation in the enclosed letter was vague at best: "Upon researching
this we found that such a Compendium was produced in l986, thus the statement that the
data was l986 is correct. However, the data was not published until l988. Enclosed is the
l988 publication that was the basis of the EPA Compendium data: 'An Estimate of Adult
Mortality in the United States from Passive Smoking' by Judson Wells."
The Wells article had been published in l988 all
right, but in the journal Environment International, not by the EPA, and the
photocopy I was sent bore Wells' name, fax number and the date March 18, l998, at the top
of each page. So much for the convention of actually having a document in hand before
citing it as a source. Nothing in the packet pertained to the United States Environmental
Protection Agency or the "Compendium."
I followed up with a letter to the ACS and copied
the Herald and the Tampa Tribune, which had also run the ad. My letter
pointed out that the ACS had not substantiated their claim that the EPA was the source for
the 53,000 figure and that the organization could well be guilty of false and misleading
advertising.
In a terse reply, Jeanne Lambert, director of
communications for the ACS, wrote: "As an earlier letter to you indicated, the source
of 'secondhand smoke kills 53,000 Americans each year' as the EPA was correct; however, it
was not published in l986."
I fired off another letter to the ACS. In essence it
said that since the ACS had been unable to produce even a single piece of documentation
that the EPA published or endorsed the 53,000 figure in l988 (or any other year), I would
file a complaint against the ACS for false and misleading advertising.
Several weeks later, the ACS's final response
arrived. "The American Cancer Society will no longer use the Environmental Protection
Agency as the source for the statistic because we too have been unable to acquire the
documentation to support this citation."
At last, the unambiguous, unvarnished truth --
the ACS had lied in their ad.
However, the letter went on to say: "Any future
references to 'secondhand smoke kills 53,000 Americans each year' will be attributed to an
article written by Stanley [sic] Glantz, Ph.D., and William Parmley, MD, called Passive
Smoking and Heart Disease, Mechanics and Risk published most recently in The
Journal of the American Medical Association, April 5, l995 ...."
So the ACS and their anti-smoking allies will
continue to use the 53,000 figure in their smoking ban campaigns, but at least from now on
there can be no doubt about its source: an article by Stanton Glantz, notorious
anti-tobacco activist and a founder of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. The same Stanton
Glantz whose inflated mortality figures on secondhand smoke were rejected by the EPA as
too flimsy for inclusion in its own controversial report. The same Stanton Glantz that one
of his own -- Mike Pertschuk of the Advocacy Institute -- accused of "ugly,
propagandistic distortion."
As for the press, the result was what we have come
to expect. Even though both the Miami Herald and the Tampa Tribune
publishers and ad directors were copied with all correspondence about the ACS ad, to date
neither paper has printed a retraction. Even the smoking gun of an outright admission that
the citation in the ad was false has left the media barons unmoved.
Was the exercise worth it? You bet it was. The
anti-smoking zealots believe they can get away with saying or doing anything if the
subject is smoking. This proves they can't if we remain vigilant.
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