Secondhand smoke declared air pollutant by Calif. panel

SACRAMENTO -- California became the first state to declare secondhand smoke a toxic air pollutant yesterday, putting the fumes in the same category as diesel exhaust, arsenic, and benzene because of its reported link to breast cancer.

The unanimous decision by the state Air Resources Board relied on a September report that found a sharply increased risk of breast cancer in young women exposed to secondhand smoke. It also links drifting smoke to premature births, asthma, and heart disease, as well as other cancers and numerous health problems in children.

''If people are serious about breast cancer, they have to deal with secondhand smoke. That's what this is all about," said Dr. Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control, Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.

The report by scientists at California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment drew on more than 1,000 other studies of secondhand smoke and blamed the fumes for 4,000 deaths each year in California from lung cancer or heart disease alone.

The most significant new finding cited by state officials is that young women exposed to secondhand smoke increase their risk of developing breast cancer between 68 percent and 120 percent. The disease kills about 40,000 women in the United States each year.

That conclusion conflicts with a 2004 report by the US surgeon general. Sanford Barsky, a researcher writing on behalf of the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company, told the board the state report ''either ignores mentioning or does not give the appropriate weight" to studies denying a link between secondhand smoke and breast cancer.

California scientists say their research is more current than the surgeon general's report.