Passive smoking report sparks row

Health experts are fuming today after the British Medical Journal (BMJ) carried a report which flies in the face of received wisdom that passive smoking causes deaths from heart disease and lung cancer.

Researchers - James Enstrom of the University of California and Geoffrey Kabat of New Rochelle in New York – collected data from 118,094 people who enrolled in the American Cancer Society cancer prevention study in late 1959 and who were followed by researchers until 1998. The study took particular focus on the 35,561 non-smokers who had a spouse in the study with known smoking habits.

The study found that "no significant associations" were found for current or former exposure to environmental tobacco smoke with later disease.

According to the study: "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."

The findings have sparked a backlash among anti-smoking groups, environmental health lobbiests and government figures.

A BMJ editorial which ran in the same issue suggested the authors “may have over-emphasised the negative nature of their findings”.

Amanda Sandford, Research Manager of the anti-tobacco campaigning group ASH, said: “The tobacco industry has been desperately tying to disprove the harmful consequences of passive smoking for years. This paper is just the latest in a long campaign to sow the seeds of doubt about the dangers of breathing in environmental tobacco smoke.

"The authors appear to be deliberately downplaying the findings to suit their tobacco paymasters.”

ASH also expressed concern that the British Medical Journal had published such a biased piece of research. Ms Sandford added: “Questions will inevitably be asked about the decision to publish research conducted by scientists in the pay of the tobacco industry.

"This could be very damaging as it will be used by industry lobbyists to argue against laws to ban smoking in public places and workplaces. We would urge policy makers not to be swayed by this study but to respect the reputable science that has already shown passive smoking to be a killer.”

Dr Ian Campbell, President of the British Thoracic Society (BTS) - the UK's professional body of respiratory specialists - commenting in response to research on the effects of passive smoking, published in this week's BMJ said: "This is yet another piece of evidence in the difficult debate on the effects of passive smoking.

"We believe that passive smoking has a much weaker effect on the lungs than actual smoking, but there are real risks involved, which need to be addressed.

"Medical evidence has conclusively shown that passive smoking has a detrimental effect on children’s lungs and there is also good evidence that suggests that passive smoking worsens the effects of asthma.

"Further research into the effects of passive smoking on lung health are needed and should be encouraged by governmental and other funding agencies."

(GMcG)