Secret documents show tobacco industry's plans to stop smoking ban
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《英国医生杂志》
Quebec
US researchers have used secret tobacco industry documents to show for the first time how the industry tried to use political pressure to delay or stop the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing a risk assessment on passive smoking. The 1992 assessment showed that second hand cigarette smoke had adverse respiratory effects, especially on children, and estimated that it caused 3000 deaths from lung cancer a year among non-smokers ( American Journal of Preventive Medicine 2004;26: 167-77).
Most of the industry's tactics failed, but it took until 2002 before a lawsuit launched by the industry in a federal court was overturned and the agency's assessment fully vindicated. Before that the tactics of a Republican representative, Thomas Bliley, succeeded in putting the assessment under a cloud. He charged that it was based on faulty science and that the agency used flawed procedures. As a result, the industry was successful in delaying the agency's report for more than a decade.
The congressional district that Mr Bliley represented includes Richmond, Virginia, where Philip Morris had a large cigarette plant. In 1983 he wrote to a then vice president of the Philip Morris company, telling him he could count on Mr Bliley to do all he could to help fight "the war on tobacco."
Dr Richard Hurt, director of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center and an author of the recent article, said, "This is the first report showing how a single member of Congress, in conjunction with his staff, tobacco industry attorneys, and executives, worked very aggressively to advance the tobacco industry's interests."
Craig Fuller, senior vice president of corporate affairs at the tobacco company Philip Morris and former chief of staff for George Bush (the current president's father) when he was vice president, described to his board of directors a strategy designed to "slow down the environmental tobacco smoke risk assessment" of the agency.
Dr Hurt said that the documents forming the basis of the article show that "the tobacco industry will expend whatever effort is necessary to protect itself from public health policy that would adversely affect cigarette consumption."
The documents were made public through litigation in the United States and are now available in the United States at the Minnesota tobacco document depository and in the United Kingdom at the British American Tobacco (BAT) document depository in London.
The article's authors say that the issuance of the Environmental Protection Agency's assessment "is widely viewed as a seminal event in the development of the movement to create smoke-free indoor air."(David Spurgeon)
US researchers have used secret tobacco industry documents to show for the first time how the industry tried to use political pressure to delay or stop the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing a risk assessment on passive smoking. The 1992 assessment showed that second hand cigarette smoke had adverse respiratory effects, especially on children, and estimated that it caused 3000 deaths from lung cancer a year among non-smokers ( American Journal of Preventive Medicine 2004;26: 167-77).
Most of the industry's tactics failed, but it took until 2002 before a lawsuit launched by the industry in a federal court was overturned and the agency's assessment fully vindicated. Before that the tactics of a Republican representative, Thomas Bliley, succeeded in putting the assessment under a cloud. He charged that it was based on faulty science and that the agency used flawed procedures. As a result, the industry was successful in delaying the agency's report for more than a decade.
The congressional district that Mr Bliley represented includes Richmond, Virginia, where Philip Morris had a large cigarette plant. In 1983 he wrote to a then vice president of the Philip Morris company, telling him he could count on Mr Bliley to do all he could to help fight "the war on tobacco."
Dr Richard Hurt, director of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center and an author of the recent article, said, "This is the first report showing how a single member of Congress, in conjunction with his staff, tobacco industry attorneys, and executives, worked very aggressively to advance the tobacco industry's interests."
Craig Fuller, senior vice president of corporate affairs at the tobacco company Philip Morris and former chief of staff for George Bush (the current president's father) when he was vice president, described to his board of directors a strategy designed to "slow down the environmental tobacco smoke risk assessment" of the agency.
Dr Hurt said that the documents forming the basis of the article show that "the tobacco industry will expend whatever effort is necessary to protect itself from public health policy that would adversely affect cigarette consumption."
The documents were made public through litigation in the United States and are now available in the United States at the Minnesota tobacco document depository and in the United Kingdom at the British American Tobacco (BAT) document depository in London.
The article's authors say that the issuance of the Environmental Protection Agency's assessment "is widely viewed as a seminal event in the development of the movement to create smoke-free indoor air."(David Spurgeon)