Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 22, 1994 TAG: 9407220119
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
U.S. District Judge William Osteen denied the EPA's motion to dismiss the tobacco industry lawsuit, which contends the agency juggled scientific studies to support its finding.
``We're delighted by the ruling that now forces the EPA to defend its conduct in court, where the rules of science and evidence will control, not the agency's predetermined and biased policies,'' RJR attorney Robert Weber said Thursday.
The tobacco industry contends the EPA report, which has prompted tougher smoking regulations around the country, is flawed, and asks the court to order the agency to withdraw it.
The report, released in January 1993, reclassified cigarette smoke as a cancer agent more dangerous than arsenic, benzene or radon and concluded that secondhand smoke causes 3,000 cases of lung cancer a year in nonsmokers.
While EPA spokesman John Kasper said he had not seen the ruling, he said: ``We stand behind the science in our report.''
Osteen ruled that the procedure under which the report was prepared and its release in ``a highly publicized ceremony ... would suggest the EPA intended the report and classification to have a regulatory effect, as plaintiffs have alleged.''
The lawsuit said the EPA reviewed 30 studies on secondhand smoke and found that 24 didn't support its conclusion that cancer was a risk. Three other studies in which animals inhaled secondhand smoke showed no significant increase in cancer, the lawsuit said.
by CNB