I suspect that many readers have seen television advertisements featuring a woman appearing to be in her fifties who complains about having lung cancer. She attributes that cancer to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS), which the Snohomish County, Washington health department refers to as "Second Hand Tobacco Smoke (SHTS)." The advertisement seems to mysteriously appear by cosmic serendipity coincidence when local activists are promoting yet another smoking ban. This year the American Cancer Society is pouring about $600,000 of cash and pledges into gathering signatures to qualify Washington's statewide smoking ban Initiative 901 for the November general election ballot. Accordingly, we have been blessed with the aforementioned advertisement clogging the television broadcast airwaves in Washington.

A few months ago a research article was published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that sheds light on the subject of women who do not smoke being diagnosed with lung cancer. That article should be of interest to all responsible citizens because the National Cancer Institute was the sponsor the George H.W. Bush administration's $135 million 1991 to 1998 American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (Project ASSIST).

From Science Daily, March 21, 2005, "Study Examines Role of EGFR Gene Mutations In Lung Cancer Development,"  about a study published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute  (NCI):

“A new study has found that mutations in either of two genes are involved in the development of lung cancer. One of them is the first known mutation to occur specifically in never smokers, according to a new study in the March 2 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Studies have found that the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene is mutated in many non–small-cell lung cancers and that these mutations are associated with increased sensitivity to gefitinib (Iressa) or erlotinib (Tarceva), tyrosine kinase (TK) inhibitors that target EGFR. Recent studies have found that EGFR gene mutations are more common among females, patients from Japan, never smokers, and patients with adenocarcinomas, which are the same groups that have the highest response rates to TK inhibitors. However, little is known about how EGFR gene mutations affect lung cancer development. . . . In lung cancer patients, mutations in the TK domain of the EGFR gene were more common in never smokers than in smokers (51% versus 10%), adenocarcinomas versus other types of lung cancer (40% versus 3%), in patients of East Asian ancestry than in other ethnicities (30% versus 8%), and in females versus males (42% versus 14%). . . . These findings "support the hypothesis that at least two distinct molecular pathways are involved in the pathogenesis of lung adenocarcinomas, one involving EGFR TK domain mutations and the other involving KRAS gene mutations," the authors write. These results also "suggest that exposure to carcinogens in environmental tobacco smoke may not be the major pathogenic factor involved in the origin of lung cancers in never smokers but that an as-yet-unidentified carcinogen(s) plays an important role." (Underline, italic added.)

The above article and the study that it reports about take front line importance in light of the legal conclusions reported for The Right Hon. Lord Nimmo Smith,   a Scottish judge who denied claims by the widow of a man who died of lung cancer. In a 1,000-plus page written opinion Lord Smith specifically and directly refuted claims that smoking caused lung cancer in this case. Forces.org reported on that story June 3, 2005.  The above article is also important in light of recent news that the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention previous “statistics” that claimed 400,000 people die each year of obesity-related illness have been reduced to a mere 26,000 after adjusting for mathematical errors, incorrect procedures, and confounding factors. That story has also been reported by Forces.org on several occasions, including my May 26, 2005 commentary “Targeting Michigan.”  We now learn from an NCI study important public health information that says the above-described television advertisement is about as truthful as CDC’s claims about obesity-related deaths.

These subjects merit earnest consideration if we are to return to responsible public policy that is guided by credible information provided through public institutions whose credibility is not tarnished – perhaps destroyed – by producing Junk Science to support special-interest agendas.

First, A Brief historical Review

The American Cancer Society was the nationwide manager of Project ASSIST. The pharmaceutical special-interest Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided more than $10 million in grants to the society during the 1990s, to assist those good folks in carryout their erstwhile endeavor to replace cigarettes with pharmaceutical nicotine delivery devices such as gums, lozenges, patches, nasal sprays and inhalers. Good 'ol Doc Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General and self-proclaimed “America’s Pediatrician,” even predicted in February 1998 that “Smoke Free” nicotine products would be the choice of “addicts” in the future (see excerpt from a February 15, 1998 article “Koop Predicts Nicotine Nasal Sprays,”  by Michael Smith with United Press International.) At the time Johnson & Johnson (stock symbol JNJ), the RWJ foundation’s namesake, was distributing Nicotrol nicotine delivery device products (see March 1999 Value Line stock report), and the RWJ foundation was the largest single shareholder of JNJ (owning a reported 5.4 percent of the outstanding common stock then worth about $7 billion.) JNJ even promoted nicotine inhalers in television advertisements that featured During the 1990s the RWJ foundation awarded about $200 million in grants to tobacco control advocacy groups. Those grants included more than $70 million to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (see, for example one grant in the amount of $19.5 million to the center in a list of 1996 RWJ foundation grants), grants to states participating in Project ASSIST (for example a $1.3 million grant to the State of Washington) and millions more to anti-tobacco activists who promoted smoking bans and new taxes on cigarettes (see $649,967 grant to Washington DOC in the 1996 grant list.)

The policies and strategies of Project ASSIST were to “Target” citizen populations, to reduce public tolerance for lawful behavior by members of “Target Groups,” to change public acceptance for “Target Group” behavior, to increase the cost of tobacco products, and to increase the number of “Smoke Free” environments. Those policies and strategies were set forth in writing on page 22 of “Planning For A Tobacco Free Washington” published April 1993. Similar booklets were also prepared under federal contract for other Project ASSIST participating states. Under project ASSIST state agencies directly supported smoking bans promoted by anti-tobacco activists (see, for example, Tobacco Free Washington’s 1994 Action Plan, which says the coalition will work to pass the 1994 smoking ban in office work environments.) In that Action Plan coalition members stated their goals, including a brazen statement about their personal interests in Goal To Success #6:

“Increase the power of the Washington Tobacco Free Coalition by increasing membership and funding.”

With mega-grants flowing through state coffers and special-interest advocacy groups matters went quite swimmingly through the 1990s for Big Tobacco, Big Drugs, and Big Government. Under Project ASSIST previous declines in adult Current Smokers leveled off, the population percent of adult Former Smokers decreased, and youth smoking prevalence skyrocketed 43 percent (see SMOKE RATE.) Such would be just what the good doctor ordered to assist a tobacco industry whose customer base had been sharply declining for the past two decades. Needless to say, every one of those 43 percent-plus new youth smokers was also a prospective customer for pharmaceutical smoking cessation products, too. And that 43 percent-plus expanded youth smoker population assured another generation of persons who smoke to finance reaping financial windfall profits from a tobacco settlement. Washington’s Attorney General (now Governor) Christine O. Gregoire lead the charge in tapping those kids to pay $206 billion over the next 25 years through the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), for which she was the principal negotiator.

By 1998 tobacco companies were set to reap record profit in near-future years, states were awash in billions of dollars each year paid by from consumers through increased prices to fund the MSA,, anti-tobacco activists were fighting with each other over who was entitled to how much of the loot, and politicians were weeping in the aisles about all the children now smoking who needed to be “Saved.” By 2001 the Center for Tobacco Free Kids and the American Lung Association lead a nationwide new initiative to raise tobacco taxes, an effort that resulted in increasing taxes on cigarettes by 60 cents per pack through I-773. In 2003 a research paper, “Estimating The Health Consequences Of Replacing Cigarettes With Nicotine Inhalers,” was published. I wrote about that in “XXX Products,”   published by Forces.org. Consistent with that paper’s recommendations to use smoking bans to “reduce opportunities to smoke,” Pierce County, Washington enacted its statewide smoking ban for restaurants, taverns, bars, casinos and other hospitality businesses. Attorney General Gregoire wrote a personal letter to support the ban in Pierce County. Today we observe the American Cancer Society pouring more than one-half-million dollars into smoking ban I-901 in Washington, while cancer researchers ask where their funding has gone, despite ACS’ accumulation of vast wealth (see “American Cancer Society:   The World's Wealthiest ‘Nonprofit’ Institution,” by Smauel S. Epstein, MD.)

Reality Check

But reality has now forcefully presented itself. In 1998 federal judge William Osteen ordered the December 1992 EPA report on secondhand smoke vacated. He accompanied that order with a 90 page-plus scathing review that thoroughly discredited EPA’s scientific methodologies in reaching its conclusion that 3,000 nonsmokers die each year from lung cancer caused by exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke. It is interesting that most of the studies included in EPA’s meta-analysis for its 1992 report about secondhand smoke reported on the incidence of lung cancer for spouses (mostly female) of smokers. We now read news articles about a study published by the National Cancer Institute – the sponsor of Project ASSIST – that presents compelling information about additional confounding factors that further and thoroughly debunk EPA’s claims about Environmental Tobacco Smoke.

It appears that we are finally at the end of a very long road when have traveled with anti-tobacco activists.

For those who still believe what anti-tobacco activists and their supporters say about Environmental Tobacco Smoke I have a strong recommendation: ignore the Brooklyn Bridge sales pitches, they are out of date. Today you should buy a share of the Weapons of Mass Destruction cache in Iraq, to make a killing selling those munitions to international arms dealers. As P.T. Barnum opined, “There’s one born every minute.”

Meanwhile we normal folks will quietly sit and watch the anti-tobacco empire rapidly crumble.

Norman E. Kjono

PS: for those still considering any donation to the American Cancer Society of American Lung Association there are a few Web sites you should visit:

WWW.NYCCLASH.COM  Join the boycott of donations to the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, then tell your friends about it. Few organizations have been more aggressive about promoting bans and taxes related to “Target” products. If their programs take money out of your pocket through unfair taxes then return the favor by assuring they never, ever see one dime in donations from you or your friends.

WWW.SMOKERSTAXREVOLT.COM  Join the boycott of tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) brands such as Philip Morris’ Marlboro. States take new cigarette taxes out of your hide, return the favor by eliminating funds for MSA payments. Fair’s fair.