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Secondhand Smoke Facts
Secondhand smoke, also known as passive or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is a combination of:
- Mainstream smoke: exhaled by smokers
- Sidestream smoke: given off by the burning end of a cigarette, cigar, or pipe
Between 70% and 90% of non-smokers in the American population, children
and adults, are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. It is estimated
that only 15% of cigarette smoke gets inhaled by the smoker. The
remaining 85% lingers in the air for everyone to breathe. If a person
spends more than two hours in a room where someone is smoking, the
nonsmoker inhales the equivalent of four cigarettes.
Secondhand smoke is the third leading preventable cause of disability
and early death (after active smoking and alcohol) in the United States.
For every eight smokers who die from smoking, one innocent bystander
dies from secondhand smoke.
Secondhand smoke contains over 4000 chemicals including more than 40
cancer causing agents and 200 known poisons.
Secondhand smoke has been classified by the EPA as a Class A carcinogen
- a substance known to cause cancer in humans.
Secondhand smoke contains twice as much tar and nicotine per unit volume as does smoke inhaled from a cigarette. It contains 3X as much cancer-causing benzpyrene, 5X as much carbon monoxide, and 50X as much ammonia. Secondhand smoke from pipes and cigars is equally as harmful, if not more so (Mayo Clinic release, Aug 97).
Over the past two decades, medical research has shown that non-smokers suffer many of the diseases of active smoking when they breathe secondhand smoke.
Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and contributes to the development
of heart disease. Never smoking women who live with a smoker have a 91%
greater risk of heart disease. They also have twice the risk of dying
from lung cancer.
Never-smoking spouses who are exposed to secondhand smoke have about 20% higher death rates for both lung cancer and heart disease.
Secondhand smoke increases heart rate and shortens time to exhaustion. Repeated exposure causes thickening of the walls of the carotid arteries (accelerates atherosclerosis) and damages the lining of these arteries.
When a pregnant woman is exposed to secondhand smoke, the nicotine she ingests is passed on to her unborn baby.
Women who smoke or are exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy:
- have a higher rate of miscarriges and stillbirths
- have an increased risk of low birthweight infants
- have children born with decreased lung function
- have children with greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
Children exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to experience increased frequency of:
- asthma, colds, bronchitis, pneumonia, and other lung diseases
- middle ear infections
- sinus infections
- caries in deciduous teeth
Ventilation systems and designated smoking sections do not protect patrons from ETS.
Current estimates of how smoking increases the risk of various diseases are dramatically underestimated because the ill effects of secondhand smoke inhalation are not taken into account.