The Osha Review of Animal Inhalation Studies with Environmental Tobacco Smoke

Abstract

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently concluded that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) “may produce mucous membrane irritation, pulmonary, cardiovascular, reproductive, and carcinogenic effects,” and that ETS presents a serious health risk to workers (OSHA, 1994). To support this conclusion, OSHA found that “animal studies show that both mainstream and sidestream tobacco smoke produce. adverse effects.” OSHA's selection and evaluation of animal inhalation studies is scientifically indefensible, because the studies relied upon used a completely inappropriate test material (either fresh mainstream smoke or fresh sidestream smoke), at substantially exaggerated concentrations (compared with published values for ETS concentrations in homes and in offices). More appropriate animal inhalation studies, notably absent from the OSHA analysis, have very different conclusions than those studies reviewed by OSHA. This article reviews the inhalation studies available to OSHA, and compares these studies with the OSHA selection. The article briefly examines a highly relevant inhalation study published after OSHA's proposed rules, but whose data (on cell proliferation) were made available to OSHA. In general the inhalation studies with the correct test material show minimal biological effects, if any, and only at very significant exaggerations of real-world ETS concentrations.