Industry watch
Second hand smoke and risk assessment: what was in it for the
tobacco industry?
Norbert Hirschhorna, Stella Aguinaga Bialousb
a New Haven,
Connecticut, USA, b University
of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
Correspondence to: Norbert Hirschhorn, 1044 Chapel Street, #502, New Haven CT 06510, USA bertzpoet{at}yahoo.com
Received 20 October
2000; Revision received 1 July 2001;
Accepted 30 September 2001
OBJECTIVE
To describe how the
tobacco industry attempted to trivialise the health risks of second
hand smoke (SHS) by both questioning the science of risk assessment of
low dose exposure to other environmental toxins, and by comparing SHS
to such substances about which debate might still exist.
METHODSAnalysis of tobacco
industry documents made public as part of the settlement of litigation
in the USA (Minnesota trial and the Master Settlement Agreement) and
available on the internet. Search terms included: risk assessment, low
dose exposure, and the names of key players and organisations.
RESULTS/CONCLUSIONThe tobacco
industry developed a well coordinated, multi-pronged strategy to create
doubt about research on exposure to SHS by trying to link it to the
broader discussion of risk assessment of low doses of a number of
toxins whose disease burden may still be a matter of scientific debate,
thus trying to make SHS their equivalent; and by attempting, through
third party organisations and persons, to impugn the agencies using
risk assessment to establish SHS as a hazard.
Keywords: tobacco industry; risk assessment; environmental tobacco smoke; ETS; second hand smoke; SHS
© 2001 by Tobacco Control
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