Smoking

Re “Media Caution.” Ventura County letters, June 20.

Secondhand smoke is deadly, period. Discussion of a possibly flawed 1992 report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on respiratory effects of secondhand smoke is clearly beating a dead horse because in 1997 the California Environmental Protection Agency published a more exhaustive review of secondhand smoke’s effects on lung, heart and other systems.

CalEPA found secondhand smoke guilty in an estimated 62,000 heart disease deaths a year in the United States (up to 7,400 in California alone); 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year (360 in California); 2,000 or more cases of sudden infant death syndrome each year (120 in California) and up to one million asthma attacks a year in children (up to 120,000 such attacks in California).

Each of these numbers represents a family tragedy--children hurt by unaware parents; parents and grandparents who lose years of enjoying their families. We must not allow tobacco industry misinformation to triumph over the reality that very real injuries are caused every day by smoking and secondhand smoke. And let’s not lose sight of the fact that these injuries are completely preventable.

ROBERT M. LEVIN, MD

Health Officer / Medical Director

Ventura County Public Health

* In the late 1980s the Ventura County Medical Assn. joined together with the heart, cancer and lung associations to form the Ventura County Smoking Action Coalition (SAC) for the purpose of supporting ordinances prohibiting indoor smoking.

We have been very successful in Ventura County in freeing local business of the liability of secondhand smoke. Because of city ordinances passed in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the subsequent state law for a smoke-free workplace (1995), enforced by our cities, working people are rarely subjected to others’ smoke and business owners who follow the law are no longer liable for injuries to employees from secondhand smoke exposure.

Stanton Glantz’s recent tourism study is only the latest in a series of economic studies based on the revenues that businesses themselves report to state taxation authorities. As always, it’s up to local people to do what is needed and to uphold the law as business owners, employees and customers. In Ventura County, we’ve come to expect no less.

FREDERICK H. BYSSHE JR.

Chair, Ventura County

Smoking Action Coalition

* Thomas Humber wrote us all the way from Alexandria, Va., to tell us he didn’t want to interfere in a local discussion. And then he proceeded to do just that. Of course, that’s exactly the mission of his so-called National Smokers Alliance, funded by Philip Morris to make the world safe for tobacco profits.

H.M. NACHENBERG

Ventura