An Environmental Protection Agency report concludes that secondhand tobacco smoke poses severe health risks to children, causing thousands of respiratory illnesses annually, sources familiar with the study say.
The draft EPA report, being presented to the agency's science advisory panel Thursday, also raises concerns that tobacco smoke may be linked to mysterious sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.The cause of SIDS is not known, but the EPA study suggests there may be relationship with infants' exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke either before or after birth. It offered no conclusive proof.
The report, which is based on an examination of dozens of scientific studies and aims to assess the health risks from tobacco smoke to non-smokers, has been under review at the EPA for more than a year.
Agency spokesmen said they could provide no details about the draft study until it was presented to the advisory board, which reviewed a preliminary draft previously and asked that the section on impact to children be expanded.
More than a year ago, the advisory panel generally endorsed the study's findings that secondhand tobacco smoke should be classified as a carcinogen and a known cause of lung cancer. The preliminary study estimated that tobacco smoke in the air may account for as many as 3,800 cancer deaths.