From: tac@cheztac.com
Date: Tue, 06/27/06
Today the Surgeon General confirmed the significant points of our
campaign -- that there's no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke,
and that non-smoking sections don't work. This report reinforces the
reasons the DC Council passed the Smokefree Workplaces Act: to protect
all workers and patrons from the health effects of secondhand smoke --
what the Surgeon General called "involuntary smoking."
This illustrates the importance of implementing solid regulations that
do allow rogue bars and restaurants to evade the law. The highest
medical authority in the United States says that exposure to any level
of secondhand smoke, even a small amount, is harmful to one's health.
We look forward to January 1, 2007, when the law fully takes effect.
----
Surgeon General Warns of Secondhand Smoke
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 11:04 AM
WASHINGTON -- Separate smoking sections don't cut it: Only smoke-free
buildings and public places truly protect nonsmokers from the hazards of
breathing in other people's tobacco smoke, says a long-awaited surgeon
general's report.
Some 126 million nonsmokers are exposed to secondhand smoke, what U.S.
Surgeon General Richard Carmona repeatedly calls "involuntary smoking"
that puts people at increased risk of death from lung cancer, heart
disease and other illnesses.
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Landlord of the pub The Stag Stuart Allen watches a customer exhale
smoke at his bar in Hatfield Heath, 30 miles east of London, Thursday,
Oct, 27, 2005. A U.S. surgeon general's report on Tuesday, June 27,
2006, said that separate smoking sections don't cut it: Only smoke-free
buildings and public places truly protect nonsmokers from the hazards of
breathing in other people's tobacco smoke. (AP Photo/Sergio Dionisio)
(Sergio Dionisio - AP)
Moreover, there is no risk-free level of exposure to someone else's
drifting smoke, declares the report issued Tuesday _ a conclusion sure
to fuel already growing efforts at public smoking bans nationwide.
Fourteen states have passed what are considered comprehensive smoke-free
workplace laws, those that include restaurants and bars.
But the surgeon general is especially concerned about young children who
can't escape their parents' addiction in search of cleaner air: Just
over one in five children is exposed to secondhand smoke at home, where
workplace bans don't reach. Those children are at increased risk of
SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome; lung infections such as pneumonia;
ear infections; and more severe asthma.
"Exposure to secondhand smoke remains an alarming public health hazard,"
Carmona said. "Nonsmokers need protection through the restriction of
smoking in public places and workplaces" _ and by smokers voluntarily
not puffing around children.
The report won't surprise doctors. It isn't a new study but a
compilation of the best research on secondhand smoke, the most
comprehensive federal probe since the last surgeon general's report on
the topic in 1986, which declared secondhand smoke a cause of lung
cancer in nonsmokers.
Since then, numerous other health agencies have linked to secondhand
smoke to heart disease and other illnesses. Earlier this year,
California health officials estimated that secondhand smoke kills about
3,400 nonsmoking Americans annually from lung cancer, 46,000 from heart
disease, and 430 from SIDS.
The new surgeon general's report doesn't retally the deaths, but it
cites that toll.
The tobacco industry and some businesses, particularly restaurant and
bar owners concerned about loss of smoking customers, have challenged
some of the broadest public smoking bans in cities and states.
The new report gives new scientific ammunition against those challenges,
said Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
"There is no longer a scientific controversy that secondhand smoke is a
killer," he said. The report "eliminates any excuse from any state or
city for taking halfway measures to restrict smoking, or permitting
smoking in any indoor workplace."
Among other findings:
_Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air and ventilation
systems don't eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke.
_There is good evidence that comprehensive smoking bans, like those in
New York City and Boston, don't economically hurt the hospitality
industry.
_Workplace smoking restrictions not only reduce secondhand smoke but
discourage active smoking by employees.
_Secondhand smoke can act on the arteries so quickly that even a brief
pass through someone else's smoke can endanger people at high risk of
heart disease. Don't ever smoke around a sick relative, Carmona advised
_Living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker's risk of lung cancer and
heart disease by up to 30 percent.
_There isn't proof that secondhand smoke causes breast cancer, although
the evidence is suggestive. California earlier this year cited that link
in becoming the first state to declare secondhand smoke a toxic air
pollutant.
_On the plus side, blood measurements of a nicotine byproduct show that
exposure to secondhand smoke has decreased. Levels dropped by 75 percent
in adults and 68 percent in children between the early 1990s and 2002.
However, not only has children's exposure declined less rapidly, but
levels of that byproduct among children are more than twice as high as
in nonsmoking adults.
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