Even the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which had previously boon critical of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) report on passive smoking, and which gives great weight to the tobacco Industry's arguments, has been forced to agree that secondhand tobacco smoke causes high levels of cancers and cancer deaths In nonsmokers.

In a report Issued today, the CRS reached estimates of lung cancer deaths which are consistent with those of the EPA.

Although other parts of its most recent report are far more conservative than the EPA's estimates, and of the conclusions of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) which is now proposing to ban workplace smoking, even the CRS conclusions would appear to Justify regulation of secondhand smoke under generally accepted governmental regulatory standards.

"Although the CRS's report Is flawed In many ways - Including the unwarranted assumption that there Is a threshold level - it nevertheless demonstrates that even under the assumptions most favorable to the tobacco Industry, tobacco smoke must be regulated like any other proven human carcinogen” says John Banzhaf, Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)

It was ASH's law suit which forced OSHA to propose a total workplace ban, and Banzhaf - a former scientist - has testified as an expert witness and lecturer on the dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke.

"Perhaps in releasing this report on a day when the Executive Branch Is shut down and unable to respond, those behind the Congressional Research Service report hoped to publicize their views without any opposition," speculates Banzhaf.

However he and others, Including scientists (unlike the authors of the CRS report) who have published scientific papers In this area, are available for comment and to offer explanations to members of the press.

ASH - ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH 2013 H Street, NW / Washington, DC 20006 / (202) 659-4310