The danger of secondhand smoke
Estimated 49,000 U.S adults died in 2005 of heart or lung disease associated with inhaling secondhand smoke. That is 134 death per day.
Estimated 430 U.S babies died in 2005 of variety of sudden infant death syndrome caused by secondhand smoke.
Source: U.S. Surgeon General
Labels: Health
posted by Life Records at 7/11/2006
1 Comments:
So, as a long-time smoker, it takes me twenty to forty years to develop symptoms of - say - COPD or emphasyma, while according to the Surgeon General, one whiff of a smoke gives someone who is merely standing near instant cancer? That just doesn't sound ... well, it's absurd is what it is.
Mind, I quit smoking around my wife and in the house, etc, a long time ago and two years ago quit smoking totally. But when you read the details of the Surgeon General's release, it is no more than a re-release of the twenty-year old meta-studies of second-hand smoke and nothing said in the actual studies themselves supports his claim that no exposure to second-hand smoke is free of risk of immediate and irreversible damage. In addition, his assertion flies in the face of common experience and sense: some dose of every poison has no effect and some dose of even water is a poison. "The dose makes the poison" is an old and well-established truth in toxicology which the SG ignores in exchange for a "hot headline". So much for science, eh?
8:14 PM
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