Press release
Immediate release 16th August 2000
FOREST still inhabits flat earth: ASH heapsscorn on tobacco industry passive smoking 'research'
ASH dismissed new polling research to be released bytobacco industry front group FOREST [1] as "predictablepropaganda, aimed at filling the summer news vacuum with recycled argumentsthat have no bearing on reality."
FOREST, a front group which is 96 percent funded bythe tobacco industry, has conducted polling which shows that publicans andrestaurant owners are alarmed about a total ban on smoking to be imposed intheir premises. ASH was quick to pointout that this has not actually been proposed by the government, the Health andSafety Executive, the hospitality industry trade associations (which haveintroduced a Charter) or even byASH.
Clive Bates, Director of ASH said:
"The tobacco industry isnow so desperate that it has to invent positions that its critics don'tactually have in order to criticise them. It's behaving like a drunk swaying down the street throwing clumsypunches at imaginary passers-by. Theyjust can't bear the wide public support for measures proposed so they've had todress it all up as an extremist plot."
"The tobacco industry isusing FOREST to alarm pub and restaurant owners by suggesting a full scale banon smoking is under consideration - but it just isn't. All that we are trying to do is to improveworking conditions for staff and provide choice for customers who don't likebreathing other people's smoke."
"The measures underconsideration include more no-smoking areas within pubs and restaurants, nosmoking at the bar to improve conditions for staff and improvedventilation. There is a lot of middleground between completely smoke free and doing nothing. All the survey data suggest that thesemeasures would be good for business." [2]
"We think that overtime, more places will become completely smoke free - just as happened incinemas, but because this is what people basically want.
ASH pointed to the Wetherspoons chain which alreadydoes this and is extremely successful:
"If everyone reached thestandards of Wetherspoons, it would mark a huge improvement in the quality ofservice offered by the hospitality sector and it would be far more accessibleto the two thirds of adults that don't smoke."
ASH piled scorn on FOREST's efforts to discredit theresearch in passive smoking. CliveBates, Director of ASH said:
"On passive smoking,FOREST is still living on a flat earth inhabited by scientific dinosaurs. The fact is there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that passivesmoking causes lung cancer and heart disease, and that it is aggravatesrespiratory conditions such as asthma. The tobacco industry has thrown their lawyers and PR people at thescientists, but the consensus remains completely solid.
"They've tried to spinthe WHO passive smoking study as supporting their case, but it justdoesn't. The researchers attacked thetobacco industry over it's deliberate misleading spin on the results. [3] and an article in The Lancet exposed the big tobacco PRcampaign aimed at undermining this study.
"They've used lawyers toattack the US Environmental protection Agency and won a minor battle onprocedural grounds in US courts, but that in no way invalidates the research. [4]"
They've taken judicial reviewproceeding against the UK Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health andcompletely failed. SCOTH givesunequivocal advice on the harm caused by passive smoking. [5]
"They've suggested dozensof unpublished studies would show the impact of passive smoking to be less thanthe published data - but no-one can find the unpublished studies. It just a theoretical fiction not groundedin reality. [6]
"The tobacco industryhas comprehensively lost the argument and all it can hope to do is maintain thefiction that there is some sort of controversy burning away out there. But the science is crystal clear and theevidence accumulates almost every month - passive smoking is everything from anirritant in the short term to a mass killer over time. [7 - lung cancer] [7 - heart disease] [8]
Notes and links..
[1] See FOREST web site
[2] ASH public places and smoking briefing - economicimpact
[3] WHO and IARC press releases inresponse to tobacco industry spin
Lancet article (PDF) ontobacco industry's PR campaign around WHO passive smoking study
[4] US EPA statement and description of its findings
[5] SCOTH findings on passivesmoking (1998) - contents
[6] BMJ article on 'publication bias' and criticalresponses
[7] British Medical Journal articles from 1997
· Lung cancer caused by passive smoking
· Heart disease caused by passive smoking
[8] ASH summary of passive smokingevidence
Contact:Clive Bates 020 7739 5902(w) 07786 791237 (m) 020 8800 1336(h)
