Smoking and Cotinine. Smoking during pregnancy is hazardous to both the mother and baby. Passive smoking, or inhalation of second-hand smoke, is also a concern. In the article “Detection of Cotinine in Neonate Meconium as a Marker for Nicotine Exposure in Utero” (Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1/2, pp. 96–105), N. Sherif et al. studied whether activesmoking or passive-smoking mothers were passing along harmful chemicals to their babies. The level of cotinine in a newborn’s first meconium, which is the infant’s stool, is reported on the WeissStats site for independent samples of active-, passive-, and nonsmoking mothers. Cotinine levels are measured in nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). Decide whether presuming that the assumptions of normal populations and equal population standard deviations are met is reasonable.