SECOND HAND SMOKE

Second Hand Smoke

Second Hand Smoke

Introduction

Cigarette smoking is a major health concern in the U.S. and around the world. Whenever someone smokes, poisons such as benzene, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide are mustered out into the air, which means that not only is the smoker insufflating them but so is everyone else around that person. In this regard, every time someone lights up a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, tobacco smoke enters the air from two sources.

The first is “mainstream smoke”, which the smoker pulls by way of the mouthpiece when he inhales or puffs. Nonsmokers are also vulnerable to mainstream smoke after the smoker blows it. The second and even more dangerous source is “side stream smoke” which goes immediately into the air from the burning tobacco. In the context, inhalation of someone else's cigarette smoke is called “passive smoking or secondhand smoke” and it affects the nonsmoker (Rather, 7). The 2003 U.S. Surgeon General's report concluded that secondhand smoke is a root of disease, including lung cancer, in healthy nonsmokers. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists it as a “Group A carcinogen”, a rating which is used only for elements that are confirmed to cause cancer in humans.

EPA Calculations

The EPA calculates that secondhand smoke causes circa 3,000 lung cancer deaths in nonsmokers every year. “Environmental Tobacco Smoke” (ETS) causes up to a million sufferers of asthma and 26,000 “new” cases of asthma in children each year. Also, the secondhand smoke has been associated to fatal heart disease, low birth weight, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and that it is the third principal cause of preventable death. Among children's illness caused by the second hand smoke include respiratory illnesses and ear infections. The second hand smoke caused deaths are above all from cancer, heart disease and breathing disorders.

Tobacco smoke causes instantaneous effects in many people such as eye and nasal irritation, headache, sore throat, dizziness, nausea, cough, and respiratory problems. Children are particularly exposed to second-hand smoke exposure as their lungs are still developing as a result of which they breathe more per pound of body weight than the adults do.

The EPA estimates that each year between 150,000-300,000 children less than 18 months old get bronchitis or pneumonia from respiring secondhand smoke. Children suffering from asthma are especially at risk, and second hand smoke may cause non-asthmatic children to acquire the condition. Second hand smoke increases the recurrence of episodes and worsens the symptoms. Second hand smoke can lead to a buildup of fluid and infections in the middle ear.

Maternal Smoking

In 2003, the World Health Organization panel resolved that maternal smoking causes one-third to one-half of SIDS cases. In 2004, the National Toxicology Program, which is an interdepartmental scientific review process, previously listed secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen in its periodic report required by Congress (Hyland, 18-19). Second hand smoke causes nasal sinus cancer and kills more Americans through heart disease than through any other ...