Montgomery County's junk science

Editorial Copyright 1999 Washington Times March 9, 1999

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 epidemiologic 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.

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