Re:Public smoking foes target the holdouts/MASS by Paul E. Kandarian, May 30, 2002
It is amazing to me that Mr. Kandarian, who is supposed to be a reporter, uncritically accepts the statistics handed to him by Lindy Muraca.
The numbers quoted, 53,000 deaths a year including 1,000 a year in Massachusetts are from The American Cancer Society which refuses to remove these false statistics from their web site.
The American Cancer Society got those figures from the 1993 EPA study that declared second hand smoke (SHS) to be a class A carcinogen.
The only problem is that in 1998 U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Osteen, of the Middle District of North Carolina, vacated the portions of the EPA study containing those figures as junk science.
As Judge Osteen said,"EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research has begun; excluded industry by violating the [Radon] Act's procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the agencies public conclusion, and aggressively used the Act's authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiff's products and to influence public opinion"
To continue to propagate these "facts" about SHS makes me, a forty year Globe reader, think that Mr.Kandarian and the Globe have ulterior motives. If you do not like smoke and smokers and wish to marginalize them, have the courage and intellectual honesty to say so, but please refrain from continuing to lie to your educated, aware readers.
If 53,000 smokers die a year and 53,000 non smokers die a year from second hand smoke, the United States is going to die off in a big hurry, don't you think?
Also, let me let you in on something else: The American Cancer LIED when they put out that 53,000 death figure:
American Cancer Society Admits "Mistake" in Ad
53,000 deaths caused from second hand smoke?
American Cancer Society Admits "Mistake" in Ad
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.
The claims that second hand smoke causes 53,000 deaths can no longer hold up due to the report by the CDC.