subject: Do You Mind If I Smoke? [print this page] Today the majority have heard the statement'secondhand smoke kills.' But in society's accelerating appreciation of the health dangers of tobacco, of the lies made by the tobacco industry, and of an emergent body of law supporting smokefree policies, it is not enough to simply state 'secondhand smoke kills' without understanding how it is a health danger, whom it is affecting, where exposure is the most major, and what can be done to stop it.
Across the years, the science of 'lingering smoker's smoke' has driven the secondhand policy engine from separate smoking and nonsmoking sections to separately ventilated smoking rooms to 100% smokefree environments. We now know that 53,800 folk die every year from secondhand smoke exposure. This number is based on the midpoint numbers for coronary disease deaths ( 48,500 ), lung cancer deaths ( 3,000 ), and SIDS deaths ( 2,300 ) as worked out in the 1997 California EPA Report on Secondhand Smoke. And kids are at major risk to many acute and chronic illnesses as a result of this exposure.
In 2007, a study using magnetic resonance imaging ( MRI ) technology was able to see damage in the lungs of nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke.secondhand smoke could cause illness in nonsmokers, hundreds of studies have concluded not only this, but that exposure to secondhand may end up in death. Over the last 20 years, systematic research has become even more clear, ensuing now in the facility to identify the effect of the smoker's trail not just on particular organs, but on various ethnicity, types of workers, and socioeconomic classifications.
The Surgeon General has confirmed the known health effects of secondhand exposure, including immediate adversary effects on the cardio system, and coronary heart illness and lung cancer. The report concluded that there's no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke and that creating smokefree environments is the sole proven way to prevent exposure. The report also unearths that millions of northern Americans are still exposed to secondhand smoke in spite of important progress in tobacco control.
As the body of scientific proof becomes bigger and more reliable, it is now simple to prove that smokefree policies not only work to guard nonsmokers from the death and disease caused by exposure to secondhand smoke, but also have a fast effect on the general public's health. On a bigger scale, a study has confirmed that restaurants and bars located in smokefree cities have 82% less indoor air pollution than restaurants and bars in towns that don't have smokefree protection. Thanks to the mountain of proof from these peer-reviewed, scientific studies, the Centers for disease Control lately issued a warning for anybody at risk for coronary disease to avoid smoke-filled indoor environments completely.
Secondhand smoke kills. Knowing the science behind it, as well as how smokefree policies protect the general public from this inconsideration for others, will help cement this in the minds of the public.
