MONTGOMERY COUNTY'S JUNK SCIENCE

When the Montgomery County Council gathers tonight to ban smoking in
local restaurants, it will do so in the name of public health. "Many
say this will make us an island," council member Philip Andrews,
Democrat of Rockville, told The Washington Post. "My take is that
this makes us a leader in protecting public health."

Unfortunately, there is little if any science to back him up. The
Environmental Protection Agency findings that drive so many smoking
bans have been the subject of mockery in research circles and have
been thrown out of federal court on grounds that were more political
science than real science. Even the agency official who came up with
the findings on environmental tobacco smoke plays them down. Why is
the county so determined to punish otherwise legal restaurant
operations in Montgomery by forcing smoking patrons elsewhere?

Consider the courts' handling of EPA's work. The agency released
findings in 1993 purporting to show ETS causes some 3,000 additional
cases of lung cancer each year. It reclassified second-hand smoke as a
"known human carcinogen." Local smoking bans followed soon after.

Industry officials subsequently filed suit over the reclassification,
charging that the agency had ignored contrary science, disregarded its
own risk- assessment guidelines and relied on unscientific methods to
arrive at its conclusions. Presiding U.S. District Judge William
Osteen, who had previously ruled the Food and Drug Administration has
the authority to control nicotine levels in cigarettes, seemed like
the kind of judge who would be sympathetic to EPA's ETS findings.

He wasn't. Judge Osteen said the agency had arrived at its conclusions
before it began the research. He went on: "In conducting the ETS Risk
Assessment, EPA disregarded information and made findings on selective
information, did not disseminate significant epidemiological
information; deviated from its Risk Assessment Guidelines; failed to
disclose important findings and reasoning; and left significant
questions without answers. EPA's conduct left substantial holes in the
administrative record. While so doing, EPA produced limited evidence,
then claimed the weight of the Agency's research evidence demonstrated
ETS causes Cancer."

The agency official who co-authored EPA's findings, Steven Bayard,
himself is on the record as saying that he didn't think the risk of
getting lung cancer from second smoke is very high. A member of the
agency's Science Advisory Board told reporters that the risk of
second-hand smoke amount to about the same one reporters took driving
through Washington, D.C., air quality to a press conference at the
National Press Club. In short, it simply isn't a serious risk.

County Executive Douglas Duncan, who favors a plan that would allow
smokers to light up in separately vented rooms, would seem to be in
good position to make precisely these arguments in vetoing the
council's plan. But he isn't. The council is convening in its role as
the county Board of Health, which means that not only is the
regulation veto-proof, it applies to all cities in the county
(although it wouldn't take effect until 2002).

Junk science makes junk law. That's something which restaurant owners
and patrons might want to remind the county about as they leave for
jurisdictions better able to distinguish between real health risks and
the politically incorrect variety.