THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, AFTER A curious delay, gave nonsmokers more ammunition to target smoking colleagues, relatives and restaurant patrons. It spent two years reviewing an expert panel's findings and finally concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke exacerbates bronchitis, pneumonia and other ailments in children and kills 3,000 adults through lung cancer each year. The report, which had seemingly run afoul of political considerations within the agency, was immediately denounced by the tobacco industry.
Physicians agree that the greatest danger from passive smoking lies in the kind of chronic exposure that may occur during a 40-year marriage, and not in the...
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