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Passive smoking: avoidable harm

It is now a fact that passive smoking is damaging.

Passive smoking applies to anyone inhaling ambient cigarette smoke – a mixture of the smoke exhaled by the smoker and the smoke from the cigarette burning between puffs.

A number of studies have proved the link between ambient smoke and lung cancer. Other studies have suggested there may be a connection between ambient smoke and cancers of the sinus and of the nose and throat, and breast cancer. It is well established that ambient smoke damages the cardiovascular system. The causal link between ambient smoke and an increase in stroke, chronic obstructive airway disease and asthma has not been fully established. Ambient smoke causes low infant birth weight and an increase in sudden infant deaths. It leads to mild respiratory disease and otitis media in infants, and increases the frequency and severity of asthma attacks.

The tobacco industry has been adroit in delaying awareness of the dangers of passive smoking by several years. In the countries that banned smoking in public places before France did, positive health effects in non-smokers soon became noticeable. For smokers and non-smokers alike, banning smoking in public places is therefore welcome.

©Prescrire March 2008

Source: "La fumée de tabac ambiante : une toxicité établie, mais évitable " Rev Prescrire 2008 ; 28 (293) :218-223.

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