Medical and Scientific Basis For Smoking Restrictions
Research has generated evidence that second-hand smoke causes the same problems as direct smoking, including lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and lung ailments such as emphysema, bronchitis, and asthma. Specifically, meta-analyses show that lifelong non-smokers with partners who smoke in the home have a 20–30% greater risk of lung cancer than non-smokers who live with non-smokers. Non-smokers exposed to cigarette smoke in the workplace have an increased lung cancer risk of 16–19%.
A study issued in 2002 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization concluded that non-smokers are exposed to the same carcinogens on account of tobacco smoke as active smokers. Sidestream smoke contains 69 known carcinogens, particularly benzopyrene and other polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, and radioactive decay products, such as polonium 210. Several well-established carcinogens have been shown by the tobacco companies' own research to be present at higher concentrations in second-hand smoke than in mainstream smoke.
Scientific organisations confirming the effects of second-hand smoke include the U.S. National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Surgeon General of the United States, and the World Health Organization.
Read more about this topic: Smoking Ban
Famous quotes containing the words medical, scientific, basis and/or smoking:
“If science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than the gestures of ceremony.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The terrors of the child are quite reasonable, and add to his loveliness; for his utter ignorance and weakness, and his enchanting indignation on such a small basis of capital compel every bystander to take his part.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What a vast traffic is drove, what a variety of labour is performed in the world to the maintenance of thousands of families that altogether depend on two silly if not odious customs; the taking of snuff and smoking of tobacco; both of which it is certain do infinitely more hurt than good to those that are addicted to them!”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)