Secondhand Smoke Kills

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Second-hand smoke is also called passive smoke, sidestream smoke, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and exhaled mainstream smoke. It is also a known Human (Group A) Carcinogen (cancer-causing agent).

• Nearly half all nonsmoking Americans are routinely exposed to secondhand smoke, a US Surgeon General report found.
  * That's down from the 84 percent of nonsmokers that had signs of nicotine in their blood in tests during the late 1980s and early 1990s (CDC).

• Secondhand smoke exposure may lead to cognitive impairment (brain). 4,809 adults 50 and older in England were studied from 1998 to 2002, according to a study in BMJ (formerly called the British Medical Journal).
  * Never smokers with the highest salivary levels of cotinine were 70% more likely to be cognitively impaired

• Upwards of almost 70,000 heart disease deaths occur each year in the US as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke, American Lung Association (ALA) estimates.

• About 3,400 lung cancer deaths are because of exposure to second hand smoke, American Lung Association (ALA) estimates.

• Secondhand smoke releases the same 4,000 chemicals as smoke that is directly inhaled, but in even greater quantity. Approximately 50 of these chemicals (carcinogens) cause cancer, according to the EPA and Canadian Cancer Society.

• Secondhand smoke is a carcinogen containing hundreds of toxic chemicals, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, ammonia and cyanide, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believes according to American Lung Association (ALA).

• 126 million nonsmoking Americans are exposed to secondhand smoke, study author Terry Pechacek said in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

• Good news! Secondhand smoke deaths are estimated to fall in the coming years. "Exposure to passive smoking has been reduced by 25 percent to 40 percent, and its burden has been reduced by 25 percent and 30 percent over the last 8-10 years," Dr. James M. Lightwood and colleagues write in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

• Secondhand smoke costs nearly $10 billion every year in the United States, according to a study by The Society of Actuaries.

• "Exposure to second-hand smoke is declining. . . [and] is likely to contribute to reductions in mortality from CHD," researchers found (Archives of Internal Medicine).

• Just 10 minutes exposure to second-hand smoke can affect cardiovascular function, according to a University of Kentucky study presented at the annual meeting of the American Physiological Society (APS).

• In China, "nearly 600 million Chinese suffer from passive smoking," said Chen Guiyun, a deputy to the 10th National People's Congress, China's legislature, from Chongqing. That's nearly half of country's 1.3 billion people. China has 350 million smokers, one of every three smokers in the world.

• Around 100,000 Chinese die each year from passive smoking, The Ministry of Health reports (Xinhua news agency).

• Secret corporate documents from British American Tobacco (BAT), a leading tobacco company, revealed an attempt to divert public attention from the dangers of secondhand smoke in China. The hoped to re-focus China's health policy.
  Source: A report by Monique Muggli, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic (Minnesota), and colleagues.

• Passive smoking kills more than 79,000 Europeans each year in the then 25-nation European Union (EU), according to a report compiled by the Smoke Free Partnership.

• In India, exposure to second-hand, passive smoke has fallen from 49 percent to 40 percent since the ban on public smoking began, according to a survey conducted by the World Health Organization.

• In the UK, about 11,000 non-smokers die each year as a result of passive smoking.

  * Breakdown: Exposure to secondhand smoke in the UK causes around 2,700 deaths in people aged 20-64 and a further 8,000 deaths a year among people aged 65 years or older. Jamrozik, K Estimate of deaths among adults in the United Kingdom attributable to passive smoking. BMJ 2005, published online 1 March 2005.

• Passive smoking in the home or workplace kills at least 30 people a day in the UK, research revealed.

• In France, 5,000 people die of second-hand smoke, according to health minister Xavier Bertrand.

• In Germany, probably more than 3,300 people die of second-hand smoke, according to the epidemiologists Professor Dr. Ulrich Keil of the University of Muenster and Professor Dr. Heiko Becher of Heidelberg University.

• In Canada, more than 4,000 non-smokers die each year because of environmental tobacco smoke, according to Heart and Stroke Foundation. Health Canada estimates that more than 300 of the non-smokers' deaths are from lung cancer.
  * 100 British Columbians (CAN) die from second-hand smoke.
  * 17 percent of Quebec children 17 and younger are exposed to second-hand smoke, while just 9 percent of all Canadian children are exposed to second-hand smoke.

• In 2002, 48,400 women in China died of lung cancer and ischemic heart disease as a direct result of exposure to passive smoke as stated by China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (ProCOR 10 September 2005).

• Did you know that second-hand smoke causes 46,000 heart disease deaths every year in the United States, 3,000 lung cancer deaths and 430 newborn sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths, according to a 2005 report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

• Estimated deaths each year of US adult nonsmokers exposed to second-hand smoke: approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,700-69,600 heart disease deaths.

• Secondhand smoke ups kids chances of getting severe infections, including meningococcal disease and may possibly affect the immune system, according to researchers from the University of Hong Kong (journal Tobacco Control).

• Drivers! Rolling the windows down while driving doesn't eliminate the unhealthy effects of secondhand smoke for kids and other sensitive passengers, a US study finds (American Journal of Preventive Medicine).

  * Arkansas, Louisiana and Maine now prohibit smoking inside cars when children are present.

  * Effective January 1, 2008, California will ban smoking in cars when children are inside.

  * Being in a car with a smoker, even with the smoker's car window let down, is equivalent to being in a smoky bar, according to a Wellington School of Medicine in New Zealand study (New Zealand Medical Journal).

• 63.4% of smoking parents reported that their child had been exposed to any secondhand smoke in the past week, according to The Social Climate Survey of Tobacco by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Julius B. Richmond Center for Excellence and Mississippi State University

  * 42 percent of all parents report that their child had been exposed to secondhand smoke (in public places, a car, at home) in the past week (see above).

  * 75 percent of US households prohibit smoking in the home and in cars. This means 25 percent of American homes allow smoking (see above).

• Women who hang around smokers regularly may have more difficulty getting pregnant because of the affects of second-hand smoke, according to a reoprt by lead researcher Luke Peppone at the University of Rochester (NY) and colleagues published in Tobacco Control.

• Heart attack survivors are more likely to have additional heart problems if they are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke, Dr. Demosthenes B. Panagiotakos of Harokopio University in Athens and colleagues found (Heart).

• In spite of New York City's public smoking ban, 57 percent of New York City nonsmokers had above-average amounts of nicotine metabolite cotinine. But only 45 percent of nonsmokers nationwide had above-average amounts, according to a city health department study published in he New York Times.

Workplace secondhand smoke is another problem smokers inflict upon society. Their coworkers and customers suffer from their addictive habit.

Quit smoking with Smoke-Free, the book.

Environmental Tobacco Smoke Problems. . .

As reorted by Dr. Christer Janson of Uppsala University in Sweden at the Annual Congress of the European Respiratory Society in Munich:

1. New exposure to second-hand smoke was associated with a 77 percent higher risk of wheezing and breathlessness compared with unexposed individuals.

2. 69 percent of those exposed to passive smoking were more likely to wheeze during exertion and more than twice as likely to have a persistent cough during the study.

3. The risk of chest tightness at night was 80 percent higher in those with new or recent passive smoke exposure.

"An increased likeliness of developing respiratory symptoms," is a result of being exposed to passive smoking, Janson said.

Women face increased risk of peripheral arterial disease from secondhand smoke, according to a study of Chinese women published in the journal Circulation.

Exposure to cigarette smoke raises teenagers' risk of metabolic syndrome, a disorder associated with excess belly fat that increases chances of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, according to a study by lead author Dr. Michael Weitzman, executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Center for Child Health Research (American Heart Association online journal Circulation).

More Children Smoking Facts..

Outdoor second-hand smoke may expose people to the same air-pollution levels as indoor second-hand smoke, according to a Stanford University study.

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Passive Smoke & Kids

The 2006 US Surgeon General's report reached several important conclusions:

1. Secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and in adults who do not smoke.

2. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma. Smoking by parents causes respiratory symptoms and slows lung growth in their children.

3. Exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer.

4. The scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

5. Many millions of Americans, both children and adults, are still exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes and workplaces despite substantial progress in tobacco control.

6. Eliminating smoking in indoor spaces fully protects nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot eliminate exposures of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.

More Children Smoking Facts. . .

Children with one parent who smoked in their presence had up to 50 percent higher levels of a biological marker of oxidative stress in their blood, Austrian researchers reported at American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2002.

Someone who starts smoking aged 15 is three times more likely to die of cancer due to smoking than someone who starts in their late twenties," UK Health Minister Caroline Flint said.

Children's levels of antioxidants may be lowered by secondhand smoke exposure, according to a study presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Baltimore (UPI).

Boys with asthma have increased risk of behavioral problems from secondhand smoke in the home, according to a study published online in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

"Babies become heavy passive smokers secondary to the active smoking of parents," Dr. Mike Wailoo of the University of Leicester and colleagues said in an Archives of Disease in Childhood report.

Infants with one smoking parent or more had 5 times as much cotinine, a nicotine byproduct, in their urine than infants whose parents are non-smokers, Archives of Disease in Childhood: Fetal and Neonatal Edition (see above).

Passive smoking problem: 94 percent of Nicosia children in Cyprus from non-smoking households and 97 percent of all children surveyed had nicotine in their saliva, according to State Laboratory researchers. Cyprus banned smoking in public places in 2002 (2009).

Phone, email and in person smoking cessation support is available to help you quit. And don't forget about Smoke-Free, the book.

© Copyright by Arthur A. Hawkins II. All rights reserved.