Show me the data

Your June 29 article "Public Smoke Ban Sought: Surgeon General's Report Sparks Push for Statewide Curbs" points out accurately that a new federal report says "secondhand smoke kills an estimated 50,000 people annually," calling the evidence "indisputable."

The surgeon general's efforts against tobacco can be applauded but are based on no scientific foundation. The largest study to date, "Multicenter Case-Control Study of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer in Europe" (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 90, No. 14, 1998), failed to find any significant lung cancer in those exposed to environmental tobacco smoke either as children or adults living with a smoker.

Another example of anti-tobacco misinformation is the landmark 1993 report in which the Environmental Protection Agency declared that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a dangerous carcinogen that kills 3,000 Americans yearly.

Five years later, in July 1998, federal judge William L. Osteen lambasted the EPA for "cherry picking" the data, excluding studies that "demonstrated no association between ETS and cancer" and withholding "significant portions of its findings and reasoning in striving to confirm its a priori hypothesis." Both "the record and EPA's explanation," concluded the court, "make it clear that using standard methodology, EPA could not produce statistically significant results."

As a physician, I am a firm believer that tobacco use can lead to many diseases. Using any tobacco product is an adult decision. Those who use tobacco need correct risk information.

As a citizen, I expect our government to base legislation on firm foundations. The best major studies fail to prove a causal relationship of secondhand tobacco smoke to cancer. That evidence is clear to me or any student of the secondhand tobacco smoke field. I would've hoped that our surgeon general was more informed.

MARC J. SCHNEIDERMAN, M.D.
Moon

Serve up air safety

How can any member of the Pennsylvania House Health and Human Services Committee now stand in the way of safe work environments for all workers with the advent of the recent report by the surgeon general and now the change in stance toward smoking by the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association ("Public Smoke Ban Sought: Surgeon General's Report Sparks Push for Statewide Curb," June 29)?

Restaurants, casinos and bars are not entirely "private" when they open their doors to the public and hire the public to work there as well. Why should they be allowed to permit harm to the employees and patrons? Are there not laws that "restrict" those who serve food to make sure it is safe to eat? I should no more have to decide whether to patronize an establishment based on its permissiveness of smoking than be wary that I will get E. coli or salmonella from the cuisine!

COLLEEN SPIEGLER
Upper St. Clair