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Secondhand smoke)
- See also tobacco smoking and Health effects of tobacco smoking
- Second-hand Smoke redirects here, for the Sublime album, see Second-hand Smoke (Album). Second-hand smoke (Song) is also a song made by the band, Twiztid.
Passive smoking (also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), involuntary smoking or secondhand smoke) occurs when the exhaled and ambient smoke from one person's cigarette is inhaled by other people. Involuntary smoking involves inhaling carcinogens, as well as other toxic components, that are present in secondhand tobacco smoke. Secondhand tobacco smoke is sometimes referred to as ‘environmental’ tobacco smoke. Carcinogens that occur in secondhand tobacco smoke include benzene, 1,3-butadiene, benzo[a]pyrene, 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone and many others. [1] Numerous studies have suggested that passive smoking can be harmful to human health, however the level of harm is controversial with research from alternative sources suggesting that the risk may not be as high as otherwise predicted. Passive smoking is one of the key issues in leading to smoking bans, particularly in workplaces.
Epidemiological studies of passive smoking
Some studies suggest that non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke are at risk for many of the health problems associated with direct smoking. In 1992, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a review of the evidence available from epidemiological and other studies regarding the relationship between secondhand smoke and heart disease and estimated that passive smoking was responsible for 35,000 to 40,000 deaths per year in the United States in the early 1980s. [2] Some studies make the claim that non-smokers living with smokers have about a 25 per cent increase in risk of death from heart attack and are also more likely to suffer a stroke, and some research suggests that risks to nonsmokers may be even greater than this estimate. One study, the Helena Study, claims that exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of heart disease among non-smokers by as much as 60 percent. [3] Parents who smoke appear to be a risk factor for children and babies and are associated with low birth weight babies, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), bronchitis and pneumonia, and middle ear infections. [4]-->
In 2002, a group of 29 experts from 12 countries convened by the Monographs Programme of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) reviewed all significant published evidence related to tobacco smoking and cancer. It concluded
- These meta-analyses show that there is a statistically significant and consistent association between lung cancer risk in spouses of smokers and exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke from the spouse who smokes. The excess risk is of the order of 20% for women and 30% for men and remains after controlling for some potential sources of bias and confounding.[5]
Two recent studies by Enstrom and Kabat (Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98, published in the British Medical Journal and Environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease mortality in the United States-a meta-analysis and critique, published in Inhalation Technology) conclude that the previous studies overestimated the effect of ETS on both lung cancer and heart diseases. These studies have been criticised by the American Cancer Society because Enstrom and Kabat are funded by the tobacco industry. However, the American Cancer society fails to mention that they funded most of the first study. They pulled their funding at the last minute, forcing the researchers to look elsewhere to find funding. They were only able to find it from a foundation funded by the tobacco companies. It would be accurate to say the study received most of it’s funding from the ACS, and a bit from the tobacco companies. [6]
Controversy
Some controversy has attended efforts to estimate the specific risk of lung cancer related to passive smoking. In 1993, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report [7] estimating that 3,000 lung cancer related deaths in the U.S. were caused by passive smoking every year. The Congressional Research Service issued a report that cast strong doubts on the veracity of the study.
Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and groups representing growers, distributors and marketers took legal action, claiming that the EPA manipulated scientific studies and ignored accepted scientific and statistical practices. In 1998 United States District Court Judge William Osteen vacated this study, declaring it null and void in a 92-page decision, that found that the EPA had manipulated results and violated scientific norms in order to to achieve its previously determined conclusion that passive smoke was harmful. Osteen's decision was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2002 on the technical grounds that the report was not a reviewable agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, and the EPA classification of tobacco was ultimately left intact. Because of this, the findings in Osteen's report are still used to argue that the issue of ETS is driven by politics rather than science, and that research on passive smoking is largely junk science.
Risk level of passive smoking
Most experts believe that moderate, occasional exposure to secondhand smoke presents a small, but measurable cancer risk to nonsmokers. The risk is considered more significant if non-smokers work in an environment where cigarette smoke is prevalent, although few studies bear this out. [8] Regardless, many countries (such as Ireland) and jurisdictions (like New York State)(England due 2007) now prohibit smoking in public buildings as well as private businesses such as restraunts and clubs. Many office buildings contain specially ventilated smoking areas; some are required by law to provide them.
Effects on pets
A study conducted by the Tufts' School of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Massachusetts revealed that a cat living with a smoker is two times more likely to get feline lymphoma than one that's not. After five years living with a smoker, that rate increases to three times as likely. And, when there are two smokers in the home, the chances of getting feline lymphoma increases to four times as likely.
This indicates that the risk of developing cancer from second-hand smoke may be greater for cats than for humans, including children. One possible reason is that the cat receives the cancer-causing agents both by inhaling and by grooming, or it may caused by factors unrelated to ETS.
A study by Colorado State University found that a dog that has exposure to a smoker in the home is 1.6 times more likely to develop lung cancer than a dog that is not exposed to a smoker. The study also found that skull shape had an effect on the estimated risk of lung cancer in dogs. Dogs with long noses (like German Shepherd Dogs) have a higher risk for nasal cancer and dogs with short noses (like Pugs) have a higher risk for lung cancer. This is because, in theory, a dog with a long nose has an extra filtering system in its nose, so it is more likely to develop nasal cancers, but because of this extra filtering system, tobacco smoke is less likely to reach its lungs and cause cancer there.
Notes
- ^ Für NS-Propaganda war Rauchen "Relikt der liberalen Lebensweise". URL accessed on 2005-12-18.
- ^ http://oaspub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=36793. URL accessed on 2005-12-18.
- ^ http://www.junkscience.com/news2/osteen.htm. URL accessed on 2005-12-18.
- ^ http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/982407.P.pdf. URL accessed on 2005-12-18.
- ^ http://monographs.iarc.fr/htdocs/monographs/vol83/02-involuntary.html. URL accessed on 2005-12-18.
- ^ Cancer Spectrum: Boffetta et al., pp. 1440-1450.. URL accessed on 2005-12-18.
- ^ Entrez PubMed. URL accessed on 2005-12-18.
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