Regarding the May 31 article "Government proposes programs for asthma prevention in Tokyo wards": It is interesting that Japan's government is focused on automobile pollution in its asthma prevention programs while apparently ignoring cigarette smoking as a major known cause of breathing problems, including asthma. Amazingly, the article mentions nothing about the victims of secondhand smoke.
Maybe if the government did not have a 50 percent stake in the Japanese tobacco industry, it would focus on the real dangers to human health.
It is time for the government and people of Japan to realize that nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke are being victimized daily by the backward, primitive attitude of Japanese society toward smoking.
Children are being exposed to secondhand smoke despite proven links between cigarette smoke and cognitive and behavioral disabilities, and physical ailments such as asthma. Of course, the government will never admit that it is profiting off the suffering of children.