ELIMINATION OF EXPOSURE TO SECONDHAND SMOKE (SHS)
The Science Behind Secondhand Smoke
Secondhand smoke contains over 4,000 and up to 8,000 toxic chemicals: about 60 are known carcinogens and can cause cancer. The U.S. Surgeon General’s report of 1986 stated that secondhand smoke was a significant health risk. In June 2002, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization concluded that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and other serious health problems. The IARC classified secondhand smoke as a cancer-causing agent in humans.
Every known tobacco-containing product exposes the user to toxic agents.
Secondhand smoke (or ETS-environmental tobacco smoke) is the combination of two forms of smoke from burning tobacco products:
- Sidestream smoke, or smoke that is emitted between the puffs of a burning cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and
- Mainstream smoke, or the smoke that is exhaled by the smoker.
When a cigarette is smoked, about 80% of the secondhand smoke is generated by sidestream smoke. This form of smoke contains essentially all of the same cancer causing and toxic agents that have been identified in the mainstream smoke inhaled by the smoker, but at greater levels and at a significantly smaller particle size—a tremendous hazard to infants and young children.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had documented earlier that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in adult nonsmokers and impairs the respiratory health of children. The National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Cancer Institute, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention support these findings as well.
The EPA also classified secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen, a designation that means there is sufficient evidence that the substance causes cancer in humans. The Group A designation has been used by the EPA for only 15 other pollutants, including asbestos, radon, and benzene. Only secondhand smoke has actually been shown in studies to cause cancer at typical environmental levels. Other compounds that nonsmokers are exposed to are tar, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, phenols, ammonia, formaldehyde, nitrosamine, and nicotine.
Nonsmokers, in fact, absorb nicotine and other compounds just as smokers do, and the greater exposure to secondhand smoke, the greater the level of these harmful compounds in the body. Although the smoke to which an involuntary smoker is exposed is less concentrated than that inhaled by smokers, research has demonstrated that the health risks and harm from inhaling smoke is significant.
Short-Term Effects of Secondhand Smoke
In the few minutes it takes to eat a restaurant meal or take a car ride, exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke may cause nonsmokers to experience headaches and nausea, burning eyes, sinus irritation and impaired concentration.
According to the California EPA, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, regular exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke can lead to these health impairments:
Cardiovascular Problems
- Damage to cell walls in the circulatory system
- Thickening of the blood and arteries as blood platelets begin sticking together
- Arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) or heart disease, increasing the chance of heart attack or stroke
Respiratory Problems
- Increased susceptibility to and aggravation of colds, flu and other viruses
- Increased susceptibility to pneumonia and bronchitis
- Increased frequency of asthma attacks
- Aggravation of allergies—humans are allergic to or irritated by many of the 4,060 toxic chemicals in smoke, including hydrogen cyanide
Immune System Problems
- Increased middle ear infections in children
- HIV-positive people may develop full blown AIDS four times as quickly
Developmental Problems
- Exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or crib death in babies by a factor of four
- Increased likelihood of low birth weight
Cancer
- Cell mutations caused by the mutagens and carcinogens in tobacco smoke
- Increases a nonsmoker’s risk of pre-cancerous lesions in the lung
- Increased likelihood of lung cancer—up to 3,000 deaths from lung cancer each year in the U.S. are attributed to secondhand smoke.
The evidence is clear and consistent. Secondhand tobacco smoke is by far the most dangerous air pollutant most South Carolinians ever encounter. It is a direct cause of heart disease and lung cancer; and it is a trigger for asthma, allergies, and other respiratory ailments in children and adults who don’t smoke.
Secondhand smoke contains strong irritants and sensitizers and many adults, as well as children, suffer irritation and other acute effects whenever they are exposed to secondhand smoke—bronchitis or pneumonia from breathing secondhand tobacco smoke, more coughing and wheezing, increase in fluid in the middle ear, severe asthma and allergy attacks, and some decrease in lung function.
The thing about secondhand smoke is that it’s just not fair. Lighting up in a crowded place or in front of your family is like shoving cigarettes in the mouths of people who don’t smoke… people who’ve decided that their health is important to them.
Life is all about decisions. Sometimes we make good ones and sometimes we don’t. It’s when our decisions affect the lives of others, rather than simply our own, that we have to evaluate whether it’s fair to keep making them. In the end, choosing to smoke is each person’s individual decision. Exposing nonsmokers, however, to cancer-causing chemicals shouldn’t be anyone’s choice to make.
Source: National Research Council
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