From: afoxland@starband.net
Date: Fri, 02/28/03
Anne LandmanPosting Date: Friday, February 28, 2003
Draft 16 of Spitzer ETS Study
Company/Source: R.J. Reynolds
Document Date: 15 March 1989
Length: 4 pages
Bates No. 515541733/1736
PDF version: http://www.tobacco.org/Documents/890315RJR515541733.pdf
In this scathing 1989 R.J. Reynolds (RJR) "Privileged and
Confidential Interoffice memo," Mary E. Ward (Associate General Counsel for RJR)
writes to George Newton Jr. (Executive Vice President & General Counsel, RJR)
and Samuel B. Witt (a Director for RJR) to express her distress about a
secondhand smoke study called the "Spitzer ETS Study" that was sponsored by
Rockefeller University with funds made available in part by RJR
Reynolds/Nabisco. A draft of the study's conclusions essentially agreed with
the predominant scientific opinion that secondhand smoke is harmful to
nonsmokers. Of the studyWard says,
"I fear that no amount of polishing or wordsmithing can make this
report a helpful document; what is worse, the document can be very damaging when
we are confronted with it in a legislative or litigation context."
One troublesome passage Ward cited in the study was,
"The weight of the evidence [about secondhand smoke exposure] is
compatible with a positive association between residential exposure to
environmental tobacco smoke (primarily from spousal smoking) and the risk of
lung cancer."
To this passage Ward responded,
"I believe that we [RJR] have consistently maintained that there
is no biological plausibility to extrapolating between exposure to ETS and
active smoking. This report will play into the hands of those...who claim a
relative risk of lung cancer based on ETS exposure from as little as a tenth of
a cigarette equivalent per day in the neighborhood of 1.5."
The study also concluded that "a cause-effect relationship
between ETS and lung cancer is biologically plausible, since there is strong
evidence in favour of active smoking as a cause of lung cancer." Ms. Ward takes
great exception to this statement, and lists a host of others from the study
that disturb her, including
"1. Sidestream smoke contains most of the carcinogens found in
mainstream smoke...It is plausible, therefore, that sidestream smoke will be
carcinogenic..."
2. "The carcinogenicity of mainstream smoke has been demonstrated
in rodents..."
3. "A parallel experiment with mainstream smoke produced fewer
tumors, indicating the greater potency of sidestream smoke condensate in this
assay."
4. "Nevertheless, the presence in ETS of potent carcinogens,
mutagens, co-carcinogens and tumor promoters, is consistent with the positive
association between residential exposure and the risk of lung cancer."
Ward also reviled a conclusion on page 18 of the draft study
that said "The available evidence supports a relationship between exposure to
environmental tobacco smoke in the workplace and public areas and respiratory
infections and disorders." Ward calls this conclusion "deeply disturbing,"
"novel" and "fanstasy."
Ward also took exception to phrases like "passive smoking" and
the definition of enviornmental tobacco smoke as "the smoke that contaminates
the air surrounding a smoker."
Towards the end of the memo, Ward states, "At present, I would not
recommend funding any publication of this report."
Quotes:
See PDF link to the document provided (it's only 4 pages
long).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Company: R.J. Reynolds
Author: Ward, Mary E. (Associate General Counsel for R.J.
Reynolds)
Recipient: Newton, George D. (Executive VP & General Counsel,
RJR)
Witt, Samuel B. III, Esq. (former General Counsel for R.J.
Reynolds and he worked for Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice. He served as Vice
President & General Counsel and was a Member of the Board of Directors of CTR in
1981. S. B. Witt, III was a Director for RJR Tobacco Co. 1982-1985 and Vice
President, General Counsel & Secretary in 1985.)
Subject: Secondhand smoke
Health effects
Region: United States
Type: Memorandum
Litigation: Undetermined current Miami flight attendant's case
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NOTES: This document does not currently exist in any on-line database
that we could find. Our thanks to the Florida attorney who so generously
supplied this important document to Doc-Alert, to the paralegal (Ray Goldstein)
who scanned it into PDF format (which allowed us to post it ) and to Gene Borio
of www.Tobacco.org for supplying the URL where subscribers can access it.
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