U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin addresses the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, March 30, 2010. (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com)

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Surgeon-General’s report that even a single cigarette can harm a person’s health is unscientific and potentially unethical, a cigar and pipe trade group says.

According to the report released on Dec. 9 by Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, “there is no risk-free level of exposure to tobacco smoke.” In announcing the report, Benjamin said exposure to tobacco smoke – even occasional smoking or secondhand smoke – “causes immediate damage to your body that can lead to serious illness or death.”

“The mixed signals and misinformation coming from Dr. Benjamin’s office lead one to question everything they say and do,” said Chris McCalla, legislative director of the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association (IPCPR). The group represents primarily small family businesses that operate neighborhood cigar stores or manufacture premium cigars, pipes, tobacco and related accessories.

McCalla said the Obama administration has targeted tobacco from the outset.

First the administration pushed though big increases in tobacco taxes to fund an expanded children’s healthcare program. Then Congress passed, and President Obama signed in June 2009, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gave new powers to the Federal Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products.

“Now the Surgeon General is saying, in effect, that walking past a smoker on the street could cause a person to develop cardiovascular disease and cancer, McCalla said.

The IPCPR noted that prior to her nomination as U.S. Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin served as a trustee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which contributes tens of millions of dollars every year to promote smoking bans and fund anti-tobacco groups. “Why is this a potential conflict of interest?” McCalla asked. “Because the foundation’s sister organization is Johnson & Johnson, maker of Nicorette, a nicotine replacement product.”

A public health researcher who has no connection to IPCPR or the tobacco industry also is challenging the surgeon general’s report:

“It is simply untrue to assert that brief exposure to secondhand smoke can cause such results,” said Prof. Michael Siegel of Boston University’s School of Public Health.  “If there is no safe level of exposure to any carcinogen, that would include exposure to automobile exhaust, the sun’s rays, benzene, radon in homes, arsenic in drinking water and many other everyday items.”

Writing in his tobacco analysis blog, Siegel said nothing in the surgeon general’s report “supports the assertions that a brief exposure to secondhand smoke can cause cardiovascular disease or cancer.  These assertions … have been manufactured to create a sense of public hysteria, but they are unsupported by any science whatsoever,” Siegel blogged on Dec. 13, 2010.