Ventilation: Is James Repace a stooge for big Tobacco?

Subject:? Question about a funding grant you recieved
Date:? September 8, 2007
To:? kerry.cork@wmitchell.edu

I noted your name attached to this grant provided by RWJF:
?
First, I am curious about the legal obstacles regarding smoking bans that this grant and RWJF hope to overcome.
?
Second, do you think it a conflict of interest that the organization which funds the smoking ban movement, (RWJF) is not only the single largest private shareholder of Johnson & Johnson stock; but RWJF was also founded by the Johnson & Johnson Company. Johnson & Johnson manufactures Nicoderm and Nicoderm CQ thru their subsidiary ALZA, and since the merger with Pfizer, J & J profits from the sales of 2 additional tobacco substitutes, Nicotrol and Chantix. Isn’t it blatantly obvious then that RWJF / J & J ‘s motives for funding the anti-tobacco movement is pure and simple rent seeking legislation in the traditional sense of the term?
?
I await your response, (email preferred).
?
Mark Wernimont
P.O. Box 215
Watertown, MN. 55388

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Active Grants
Public Health

Project:
Legal and political obstacles to smoke-free regulations in metropolitan regions

Grant Detail:
$99,807, (awarded on Apr 20, 2007, starting Jul 1, 2007 ending Dec 31, 2008) ID# 61373

Grantee:
Tobacco Law Center
http://www.tclconline.org
875 Summit Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55105-3030
(651) 290-7506

Summary:
The Foundation’s Substance Abuse Policy Research Program was designed to provide support for investigators to conduct policy research on a variety of subjects directed at helping the country reduce the harm caused by substance abuse. Accepted wisdom in the tobacco control community holds that effective smoke-free public policies begin at the grassroots level, where they connect more directly to communities, and then progress toward regulation at the state level. Along the way, however, progress is often stymied by legal and political challenges that arise in large metropolitan regions, where regulatory powers are fragmented among a crazy quilt of governmental units, often exacerbated by legal inconsistencies and uncertainties. Surprisingly little research is available about legal and political obstacles communities face in regulating tobacco in metropolitan areas, particularly in comparison to the wealth of information on the related issue of preemption. This study will determine the most effective strategies for public health advocates, health organizations, policy makers and legal professionals in enacting or implementing smoke-free policies in a metropolitan setting, as well as develop recommendations for anticipating, avoiding, and addressing obstacles to these strategies. Data from legal databases, online and print legal resources, public documents, as well as 25 key informant interviews will be used to reconstruct the experience of policy change in five metropolitan regions across the United States and to identify the major challenges encountered, responses pursued, and lessons learned.

Contact Information:
Kerry Cork J.D. (Project Director)
kerry.cork@wmitchell.edu
Phone: (651) 290-7506

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Is James Repace a stooge for big Tobacco?

The reverend James Repace stood atop the mountain and bellowed at the ignorant masses below

“No safe level in all the world exists by inhaling second hand smoke. Heed this my children it would take Hurricane force winds to rid any building of the dangers of the evil scourge of second hand smoke.”

Well it amazes me no one to date has summed up the courage to dig out that calculator and challenge the words of tyrants. In a recent submission Repace in critical review stated he had in 1999 given court evidence, which remains to this day as fact.

In a smoking allowed Casino the average smoke measurements where 205 Mg/m3{RSPs} and .08% = 163 Ng/m3 {PPAH}before a ban and 9Mg/m3{RSPs} and 4Ng/m3{PPAH} after a ban I won’t go into long winded explanations, however he assessed the level measured in a Casino where smoking was allowed would be 10,000 times the known safe level.

This established two things;

First the known safe level (which does not exist or maybe it does?), as he put it in Air, Water and Food according to the American government is by calculation 16.3 Pico Grams per cubic meter of air.

Secondly the toxins remaining after a ban would exceed the safe levels by 250 times.

Bringing us back to his original statements no safe level exists. Due to his own calculations estimating a risk in offices due to ETS said to be 255 per million deaths his acceptable standard was established at 1 in a million. (Keep in mind 1×1 = 1}

By combining research, he shows where if one calculation is accepted he can spin a second from it. Bringing us to the Repace calculation

His previous research found an average 211 Mg/m3 RSPs to be an average in a smoking environment. So if you divide any measured level by 211 and multiply by 10 you get the risk per thousand, multiply by one thousand to get the risk per million and only 1 per million is allowable risk. So even a fraction of the 211 will exceed the known risk in air water and food. Any measured level of particulate matter RSPs in a cubic meter of air exceeding 21.1 nanagrams/m3 or PPAH above 16.9 picograms/m3 in fact will increase the risk above his safe level.

If you had a vacuum in the room, you would meet the standard for safety, which is well below the level of a non-smoking environment. So bring on the Hurricane; I agree in order to rid the room of his assessment of risk you would require a hurricane force wind. Putting him in the class of a millionaire who religiously throws a penny in a beggar’s cup to declare he makes annual charitable contributions. Or a Industry owned charitable foundation while avoiding paying taxes they can hire lobbyists to keep the charity at home. Not a lie but I would not trust him around the silverware.

This is the kind of ethical standards used in anti smoking advocacy 47,000 preventable smoking related deaths regardless of cause. Smoking bans do not prevent one of those deaths, as they are not ETS deaths and bans are to protect non-smoking workers not smokers. If a real effort to reduce those deaths were to happen the first target should have been the product ingredients not the smokers. Taxes and settlements do not affect the makers in the least they are just added to the price of the product. So a campaign against the industry is seen to be a farce they in fact are making more now; selling less product with no advertising expenses, than they have ever have profited in the past. While Government paints hateful pictures of smokers turning community upon itself. People could not fathom why Government was investing pension funds in Tobacco companies. The price of smoking patches will earn others billions in the game. Industry and government laugh all the way to the bank. Poverty grows and violence in kind. Next will be the Fat crusades – are you getting on board?

One package of cigarettes produces 2500 milligrams RSP x .08% = 2 milligrams PPAH 125 million times his safe level so where is James concern for the Millions of primary smokers. A lot more primary smokers require protections than the much lower amount of hospitality workers. His assessment of the dangers to workers who spend the full day in smoking environments does not extend a danger to the general public who would occupy those spaces much less time. In fact, even by his own calculations proof is seen ETS is harmless to the general public in total body accumulation one-year average. Dioxin levels decrease with cessation of exposures with an 8.7-year half-life accumulation rates do not exceed purge rates.
Therefore, if he is concerned with protecting hospitality workers the only sensible action according to his own sources would to provide respirators for those who are concerned with their health. Unless he has knowledge not available from the American EPA, the rules are clear. The product needs better regulation and harmful ingredients removed so we can all be protected. Dealing with an unsafe product does not require punishing the consumers unless of course your real intent is to protect the manufacturer as a valued stakeholder in anti smoker advocacy. James Repace is a spin-doctor now it becomes unclear what he really supports, and who is really paying him to promote this agenda. Could James Repace actually be a stooge for big Tobacco?

2/10/06
A Newsletter Reader

(c) Copyright 2006 The Smoker’s Club, Inc. Please repost with link back to this original article.