The Environmental Protection Agency is standing by its finding that secondhand tobacco smoke causes cancer despite a federal judge’s decision striking down its 1993 report that made the link.
Lawyers were reviewing the ruling handed down by U.S. District Judge William Osteen in North Carolina, but officials said Sunday an appeal is all but a certainty.
Osteen, acting on a lawsuit filed by the tobacco industry, ruled that the EPA based its 1993 report on inadequate science and failed to demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.
“The decision is disturbing,” EPA Administrator Carol Browner said Sunday.
The EPA’s report on environmental tobacco smoke concluded that secondhand tobacco smoke should be classified as a Class A carcinogen and was responsible for more than 3,000 lung-cancer deaths a year.
