Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Science vs. Rhetoric

After an extensive review and analysis of the scientific evidence on the respiratory health effects of passive smoking, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded that environmental tobacco smoke causes lung cancer in adult nonsmokers and increases the risk of a variety of non-cancer respiratory disorders, especially in children. This article is a response to claims in Dr. Gio Gori's article "Policy Against Science: The Case of Environmental Tobacco Smoke," appearing in the same issue of this journal, that such conclusions are unwarranted. This response focuses only on the respiratory health effects of environmental tobacco smoke.