The Dangers of Smoking

Second-Hand Smoke Could Kill

Feb 6, 2009 Gwendolyn Cuizon

We all know that smoking is dangerous but what we don't know is being exposed to cigarette smoke or second-hand smoke could also have harmful effects to our body.

It is no secret that smoking causes preventable death and disease. ‘Cigarettes cause more deaths than cocaine, auto accidents, AIDS, alcohol, heroin, fire, suicide and homicide combined’ (Reynolds, Patrick 1998). Reynolds wrote in Anti-Smoking.Org's official website that smoking caused 400,000 deaths every year in the United States alone. That equates to at least 1,200 lives per day. The resulting effect contributes to a $50 billion annual loss in productivity and additional health care costs.

In the international scene, smoking attributes to two to three million deaths each year. There are more or less 1.2 billion smokers worldwide. World Health Organization estimates a staggering 500 million smokers or an equivalent of 9% of the world’s population will die due to smoking. If these findings do not alarm us, then the fact that the tragic effects of smoking are not exclusive to smokers alone but extend to the innocent non-smoking public should send warning bells to our minds.

Second-Hand Smoke

Scottish Health Executives (2004) defined second-hand smoke as "Other people's tobacco smoke, either from the burning tip of the cigarette or the smoke that is exhaled by the smoker." Secondhand smoke or ETS has been classed as a Class A (known human) carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency in the USA, in the same class as asbestos, arsenic, benzene and radon gas.

A non-smoker living with a smoker is exposed to an average of about 1% of the tobacco being actively smoked. In a recent study conducted, it was revealed that second-hand smoke or passive smoking is the third major cause of lung cancer in the United States. The health risks due to exposure of second-hand smoke also known as 'environmental tobacco smoke' (ETS) are serious. The Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health concludes that:

  • second-hand smoke can cause of lung cancer, long-term exposure increases the risk by 20-30%
  • second-hand smoke can lead to heart disease
  • second-hand smoke causes asthma in children, and it could worsen the condition for those afflicted with asthma

Aside from the long-term effects, it was found out that second-hand smoke can trigger heart attacks in some people after being exposed for a short time. People with coronary heart disease and coronary artery disease are advised to take precautionary measures to avoid indoor smoke. Tobacco companies’ aggressive advertising in the product has depicted smoking as a lifestyle for the elite. It is estimated that they spend as much as over $4 billion annually on advertising to create this image.

The copyright of the article The Dangers of Smoking in Health Field is owned by Gwendolyn Cuizon. Permission to republish The Dangers of Smoking in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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Feb 6, 2009 9:33 AM
Guest :
There are many scientists and reseachers, and at least 50 studies, that conclude that Second Hand Tobacco Smoke is NOT a Statistically Significant Health Risk for any ailment to other people, including children, even inside cars. Yet, how can the general public possibly be convinced that these studies and their conclusions are correct, when almost all other studies' conclusions claim exactly the opposite. The global news industry deliberately exclusively promulgates the anti-smoking studies, and never reports studies that contradict them ? Another aspect the news industry refuses to report is that Richard Smith, former Editor of the British Medical Journal, and his staff supporters, and those of 12 other Medical Journals, who were forced to resign for trying to tell the world that the majority of studies are junk science-for-a-buck paid for by pharmaceutical companies. Furthermore, it has been determined that the majority of researchers do not adequately disclose associations to origins of fundings, if at all. Again, how do we the public know which studies to believe when we are not informed of all the contrarying studies, nor who paid for the study ? Yet, one wonders what good it would do to report all that information, when most people never get to read the actualy study, but if they did, would not understand it, nor know how to tell which one is junk science. The only way we the public have to tell if a study summary and conclusions is telling the truth or is junk science is by common sense logic. Consider the case of allergies and atopy. When one considers that the human race lived with second hand smoke since at least the first campfire for warmth and cooking, and only recently has been eradicating that sort of exposure, and only recently those societies who have done this are experiencing exponential increases in asthma and many other allergies, and further, in those countries where smoking rates have plummeted or are plummeting, while the ailments alleged by anti-smoking studies to be caused by Second Hand Tobacco Smoke skyrocket at the same time, common sense logic must conclude that all anti-smoking studies about Second Hand Tobacco Smoke are the studies that are junk science-for-a-buck, while studies that contradict anti-smokers are "The Real McCoy". - steve hartwell, toronto, canada, www_tobaccosmokersofcanada_ca
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