In December 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared that environmental tobacco smoke is a class A human carcinogen, responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths per year in nonsmokers (1). Although evidence is still accumulating on the role of passive smoking in coronary heart disease among nonsmokers (2, 3), if this association is real, then the total burden of deaths attributable to passive smoking could be much greater-up to 10-20 times higher-than the risk assessment provided by the EPA.
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Kawachi et al. (1996) studied this question.