[Intl-tobacco] Tobacco industry weakened pesticide regulations globally - UCSF study

[robert weissman]

Contact: Janet Basu
jbasu@pubaff.ucsf.edu
415-476-2557
University of California - San Francisco

Tobacco industry weakened pesticide regulations, UCSF study shows

The tobacco industry coordinated cross-industry campaigns to delay and
weaken federal and international regulations on pesticide use, according
to new findings by UCSF researchers.

The findings are reported in a study and commentary posted online at the
pre-publication website of Environmental Health Perspectives, the
journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The
information will be published in a future issue of the journal.

Based on an analysis of internal tobacco company documents, the article
outlines evidence that the tobacco industry hired ex-agency scientists
to intervene in federal Environmental Protection Agency decision-making,
hired a consultant to influence World Health Organization pesticide
regulatory deliberations without revealing his industry ties, and staged
a useless test aimed at convincing regulators that no further
restrictions were needed to control an especially deadly pesticide,
among other actions.

The authors point to the need for broader reform of the regulatory
process to prevent abuses such as these in the future.

"This shows that the tobacco industry's influence on our nation's health
extends far beyond policies directly concerned with smoking or
cigarettes," said Ruth Malone, RN, PhD, associate professor in the UCSF
School of Nursing and senior author on the study.

First author Patricia McDaniel, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at the UCSF
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, added, "It's one
thing for the industry to participate in the public policy process by
providing information or arguments, but it's another to hire people to
secretly influence the policy process and to manipulate the science
guiding policymakers."

The researchers present three case studies based on examining
approximately 2,000 formerly secret internal tobacco company documents
as well as 3,885 EPA documents obtained under the Freedom of Information
Act.

EPA standards to reduce the risks of the fumigant phosphine:

In 1998, when the EPA proposed a series of risk mitigation measures to
protect workers and the community from sometimes-fatal poisoning by
phosphine, tobacco interests protested that the rules would "make it
virtually impossible for our industry to continue to fumigate stored
tobacco."

Tobacco companies invited EPA officials to view a series of emissions
tests to persuade them that a 500-foot buffer zone was not needed around
fumigated warehouses. The UCSF researchers cite a Phillip Morris email
to show that PM experts knew that the test methodology was flawed and
the results would show no emissions problems. The PM employee wrote,
"...the test plan and methods will provide, literally, no information,
so it won't hurt us to do it."

A coalition of phosphine users, including tobacco companies, hired
Sciences International, a private company headed by Elizabeth Anderson,
a former EPA director, to prepare a report challenging the EPA's plan to
impose stricter exposure limits for workers and the community. Anderson
obtained additional funding from the coalition to publish the consultant
report in Risk Analysis, a journal for which she served as editor-in-chief.

Dan Barolo, former director of EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs, also
served as a coalition consultant. In memos cited by the researchers, he
emphasized the urgency of coming to agreement on the report's contents.
In one memo, he commented, "Some day they are going to figure out there
is a [stricter] standard in other countries and the door will close."

Despite advice from its own toxicologists, in 1999 EPA approved the
weaker regulations advocated by the tobacco and pesticide industries.

WHO safety standards for EBDC fungicides:

After the U.S. EPA determined that a breakdown product of EBDC
fungicides was a probable human carcinogen in 1987, CORESTA, an
international tobacco research organization, hired a consultant to
provide advice on influencing international regulations on EBDC
fungicide limits. Adding to WHO documentation, the authors describe how
the consultant, Gaston Vettorazzi, worked with WHO officials in the
capacity of an expert consultant from 1990 until 2001, influencing
regulations on EBDC while concealing tobacco industry payments of as
much as $100,000 a year.

Pesticide residue levels for methoprene insecticide:

In the early 1990s, Phillip Morris worked with manufacturer Zoecon in
Malaysia, Italy and Germany to set pesticide residue limits that were
more lax than their own data supported. Zoecon manufactures methoprene,
an endocrine disruptor that prevents the larvae of cigarette beetles and
tobacco moths from maturing. At Phillip Morris' insistence, the company
asked for and obtained residue limits of 15 ppm in tobacco when its own
data supported a level of 10 ppm. Zoecon also collected data about
international regulatory efforts on methoprene while concealing the
tobacco industry's interest in these regulations, the UCSF researchers
found.

"Cynical manipulation of health protection in favor of corporate profit
may not be new," said UCSF co-author Gina Solomon, MD, assistant
clinical professor of medicine at UCSF and senior scientist at the
Natural Resources Defense Council. "But this is the first time we've
seen 'big tobacco' working hand-in-glove with the big chemical
companies, with the proof of the deception glaring from their own
internal documents."

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The research was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute
and by fellowship funding from the American Legacy Foundation. The full
report is available at:
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/7452/abstract.html.