Gough, now director of risk and science studies at the free-market Cato Institute, can hardly be accused of being a tool of the tobacco industry. But passive smoke is a different matter, he adds. WHO's findings, first reported in early March, have received wide coverage in British papers such as the London-based Sunday Telegraph. But on this side of the Atlantic, most of the press has yet to lift the fog. Despite the scant coverage so far, observers say the study could weaken the case for smoking bans and passive smoking suits.
Skeptics agree that the results are in line with other studies.
But they add that most other studies also show the risk of lung cancer is so small as to be scientifically meaningless. When it pooled the results of several passive smoke studies a few years ago, the EPA had to double its margin of error in order to show a small, albeit statistically significant, risk. The link hasn't held up in court either. Last month a Muncie, Ind., jury found that cigarette makers were not liable in the '91 lung cancer death of nonsmoker Mildred Wiley. Lawyers for her husband, who brought the injury suit, claimed that Wiley contracted lung cancer through exposure to passive smoke at a veterans' hospital, where she worked as a nurse.