BMJ  2003;327:502-503 (30 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7413.502-c

Letter

Passive smoking

Tobacco industry publishes disinformation

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—The American Cancer Society does not agree with the conclusions of Enstrom and Kabat in their analysis of environmental tobacco smoke in the cancer prevention study I (CPS-I).¹ Their study is fatally flawed because of misclassification of exposure. The cancer prevention study was started by the society in 1959 to measure the effects of active smoking, not to collect valid estimates of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.² No information was obtained on sources of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke other than the smoking status of the spouse. Tobacco smoke was so pervasive in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s that virtually everyone was exposed, at home, at work, or in other settings. Enstrom and Kabat essentially compare non-smokers, married to a smoking spouse, with non-smokers with other sources of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. Misclassification of exposure is compounded because no information was collected on the smoking status . . . [Full text of this article]

American Cancer Society, 1599 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30329-4251, USA mthun@cancer.org

Related Article

Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98

James E Enstrom and Geoffrey C Kabat
BMJ 2003 326: 1057. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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