New Research: Smog = 300 Cigarettes Daily

Not to be alarmist or anything, but some folks have been curious why non-smokers are getting smoker's diseases, like lung cancer. (A disease which kills 85% of patients within the first 5 years of diagnosis).

WaPo reports it starts with air pollutants known as free radicals (copper, iron, etc) that were previously thought to disperse in the atmosphere after being created by car exhaust, factory fumes, the homely hearth, etc.

But now they're saying these free radicals attach themselves to smog particles that are also created by car exhaust, factory fumes, the homely hearth, etc. So the free radicals live on for days. That's why they're called persistent free radicals. Meaning, as long as there's smog, there's also free radicals.

Where else can you get free radicals? In cigarettes. But lead researcher H. Barry Dellinger seems to fear the dangers of cigarettes are dwarfed by those of smog:

one would have to smoke about 300 cigarettes a day to be exposed to the same level of environmental free radicals found in moderately polluted air.

I'm not sure what "moderately polluted air" means. I assume it's relative to first world cities that start warning their populations when PM-10 particle per cubic meter hit 50-60. So, perhaps "moderate" means 40? Santiago's smog goes untouched till about 200.