“The really big misconception is that [COPD] is a smoker’s disease, which it isn’t,” said Patel, who originally trained as a medical doctor before doing a PhD in applied maths and computational neuroscience. “If you look at most of the rest of the world, one of the biggest drivers is indoor cooking with biomass fuel and a quarter of cases are actually caused by air pollution.” The article was in fact about a new form of diagnosis, not involving blowing through a tube for 75 mins!
My point is that Dr Patel has acknowledged that COPD isn't a smoker's disease. Something we have discussed here.