On misreported ETS studies

Published August 8, 2001

To Mr. Neil A. Campbell, editor, Globe and Mail (nacampbell@globeandmail.ca):

On July 22, I emailed you information about Andre Picard’s alarmist article, “Second-hand smoke can triple risk,” published in the Globe and Mail on July 12. I said I hoped you were as troubled as I was over his misrepresentation of the Health Canada study, and that your paper would see fit to publish my letter to the editor, a copy of which I sent you.

I also emailed Andre Picard with questions about his article.

Since I received no response from you or Mr. Picard, and since to my knowledge my letter to the editor was not published, I am taking this opportunity to make public what the Globe and Mail apparently would not.

I can only surmise that Mr. Picard, your “public health reporter,” did not read the study before he reported on it. Either that or he knowingly misled your readers. In either case, he is a sorry excuse for a “public health reporter.”

For example, he claims that the Canadian study “provides some of the most compelling scientific evidence yet for a total ban on workplace smoking, including bars and restaurants,” yet not once does he disclose the fact that this study found no statistically significant increased risk from secondhand smoke.

He claims that the study “found that the more people smoke in a workplace, the greater the risks to non-smokers.” On the contrary, if he had read the study he would have seen that it found just the opposite when it came to “occupational smoker-years.” It shows that nonsmokers who worked with smokers for 64 or more smoker-years had a LOWER risk than those working with smokers for 26-64 smoker years.

The study further found that the longer nonsmokers lived or worked with smokers, the more their lung cancer risk decreased. A most unlikely thing if secondhand smoke really is the culprit Mr. Picard portrays it to be, and one has to ask why he made no mention of this decreased risk with increased exposure.

According to Picard’s article, Dr. Roberta Ferrence of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit hopes that this “strong new evidence will prompt strong new action” to expand smoking bans in the workplace. Oh really? Findings that are not statistically significant are “strong evidence”? I don’t think so. It appears, also, that Dr. Ferrence didn’t read the study or she would have seen the authors’ cautionary statement that the small number of cases “precludes drawing strong conclusions.”

Only one subset in this study found a significant “trend” for increased risk with increased exposure to secondhand smoke. However, not one finding in that subset reached statistical significance, and in fact it shows a reduced lung cancer risk for nonsmokers living and working with smokers for 1-36 smoker years. Again, a fact not mentioned by Picard.

In my letter to the Globe and Mail, I suggested that you publish a more objective follow up article to Mr. Picard’s, one in which all relevant data from this study is reported to the public.

To my knowledge you have not done so, and that does not speak well for your paper. It suggests that in your zeal to advance the antismoking agenda, you have no qualms about misleading the public, and that is reprehensible.

Sincerely,
Martha Perske

Update Aug 8.:

Subsequent to the publication of this piece, the following e-mail has been received from "Campbell, Neil A." NACampbell@globeandmail.ca:

Hi, I think you're looking for Richard Addis, the Editor of the newspaper. I'm the editor of globeandmail.com. Andre Picard works directly for the newspaper.

Curious that Campbell hadn't the curtesy to respond with that information when contacted July 22^nd but the ducking and weaving certainly began with alacrity with this publication.