TOBACCO COMPANIES ARE NOT THE DECEIVERS, IT'S THE EPA

It was one of the major news stories of the decade in the ongoing War on
Tobacco, neatly buried on page three of the July 19 Times ("U.S. judge
dismisses EPA's '93 study on secondhand smoke").

A federal judge rules that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
warnings about "secondhand smoke" are a bunch of political hooey and throw
out their entire report as a nonlegal basis for public policy. Not only was
it given ho-hum billing, but important aspects of the Washington Post story
were edited out. Why?

Perhaps it is just that a new, scary story about tobacco is sexier news,
and reporting that the sky may not be falling - after all - doesn't lure a
half-dollar worth of paranoid curiosity at the newsstand.

The axis of power for the War on Tobacco is the 1993 "EPA Report on
Secondhand Smoke," based on a narrow collection of studies that gave
credence to the prohibitionist hard line. A federal judge, after carefully
studying the politically driven "science" and EPA procedures, threw out the
classification of environmental tobacco smoke as a Class A carcinogen.

Among the most pivotal points in the article by John Schwartz of the Post
that were edited out in The Times' version of his story was the accurate
and damning statement by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Osteen that the
"EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun."

In fact, they paid a handsome sum to Seattle anti-smoking activist Robert
Rosner to write a risk assessment before the research had even been
completed. In simple terms, the EPA scrounged around for some statistics
that would support their pre-ordained, purchased and advertised conclusion.
It was a done deal from the start, aided and abetted by a press eager to
print scare stories of any stripe.

In addition, Judge Osteen stated that the EPA "adjusted established
procedure and scientific norms to validate the agency's public conclusion."
In other words, they cooked the books and massaged the data to - the
judge's words - influence public opinion.

Instead of printing the full text of the judge's opinion as reported in the
Washington Post, The Times chose instead to report the full text of excuses
for bad science offered by the EPA administrator and an anti-smoking
activist. This is a clear case of editorial opinion making the news we read
in the newspaper less than objective.

Perhaps the most telling edit in The Times' version of Schwartz's article
was the beginning of the second paragraph, which he began, "The
controversial EPA reports concluded . . ." "Controversial" was deleted in
The Times.

There is legitimate controversy here, and in this case, the tobacco
companies aren't the deceivers. It is the EPA and that's the news.

Jim St. John, Kirkland

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)