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If you were only to read the stories in local newspapers and listen
to many of those on local media, you would receive a very biased
and untrue version of the facts.
I guess you could call us the silent majority.
We are not organized to cause confrontation. We have no hidden
agenda or financial incentive.
We are organized to present the TRUTH.
For example, the Ohio County Commissioners, Wheeling Chamber of
Commerce, and Wheeling City Council have absolutely no authority
with regard to regulating secondhand smoke. This is a “community
health issue”.
The Board of Health, as stated by the WV Supreme Court is the
only body who has the authority to pass a regulation regarding
this issue. This regulation is similar to other health regulations
such as strict food handling considerations or not going into
a restaurant without shoes on your feet. This is not a “rights
issue”. There is no legal right to smoke.
Secondhand smoke contains cancer causing substances (carcinogens),
and , therefore, is not only lethal to the smoker but also to
the nonsmoker who is exposed to it. Several weeks ago, Phillip
Morris admitted that they knew it was harmful 30 years ago. There
is absolutely no evidence that secondhand smoke is not harmful.
If you are a worker, did you know that just 30 minutes’
of exposure to secondhand smoke has the same effects on blood
and blood vessels as being a pack a day smoker?
Did you know that no feasible ventilation system can protect you?
Oh, it might remove the odor and the smoke, but the carcinogens
remain.
Did you know that workers in restaurants, bars and casinos that
allow smoking are exposed to 300-600% more secondhand smoke than
if they live with a smoker?
Did you know that secondhand smoke can bring on an asthma attack;
make a bad heart attack fatal and could be increasing the risk
of breast cancer among female restaurant staff by 40%?
These facts and many more are listed below on our website.
Please take a few moments to educate yourself with the TRUTH.
It’s important.
Secondhand smoke is a serious health risk.
• Toxic Chemicals: As much as 468,000 tons
of tobacco are burned indoors each year. Secondhand smoke is the
only source of air-borne nicotine and contains more than 4,000 chemical
compounds; more than 40 are known to cause cancer.1 Secondhand smoke
includes such notorious chemicals as formaldehyde, cyanide, arsenic,
carbon monoxide, methane, benzene, and radioactive polonium-210.2
• No Safe Exposure: The U.S. EPA classifies
secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen—a substance known
to cause cancer in humans—the same category as radon and asbestos.
There is no safe level of exposure for Group A toxins.3
• Immediate Effects: Exposure to secondhand
smoke can cause immediate adverse effects—eye irritation,
throat irritation, coughing, chest discomfort and difficulty breathing.4
Five minutes of exposure stiffens the aorta as much as smoking a
cigarette, making the heart work harder to pump blood.5 Only 30
minutes of secondhand smoke exposure can cause narrowing of blood
vessels, restricting the flow of blood and contributing to hardening
of the arteries.6 In that same 30 minutes, changes to your blood
boost your risk of building up fat deposits that could lead to heart
attacks and strokes.7 After 120 minutes of exposure, your heart
rate variability is reduced, increasing the chance of an irregular
heart beat that can itself be fatal or trigger a heart attack.8
• Illness and Disease: Medical studies have
shown secondhand smoke to be a significant factor in illnesses and
diseases, including:
In Adults:
Lung cancer
Heart disease
Respiratory Illness
Asthma Attacks
Impotence
Stroke
Emphysema
In Children:
Asthma
Hearing Loss
Bronchitis
Low Birth Weight
Ear Infections
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Cavities
Pneumonia
Other Respiratory Illnesses
• Heart Disease: Exposure to secondhand smoke
is consistently associated with an increased risk of coronary heart
disease.9 After twenty minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke,
a nonsmoker’s blood platelets become as sticky as a smoker’s,
reducing the ability of the heart to pump and putting a nonsmoker
at an elevated risk of heart attack.10
• Lung Cancer: Secondhand smoke is responsible
for at least 3,000 lung cancer deaths of nonsmokers yearly, 30 times
more lung cancer deaths than all other regulated air pollutants
combined.11 Of the 3,000, 800 are from exposure to secondhand smoke
at home, and 2,200 from exposure at work and other public places.12
A nonsmoker who lives with a smoker has a 21 percent higher risk
of developing lung cancer over their adult lifetime. But if the
nonsmoker lived with a smoking parent as a child, the nonsmoker’s
risk jumps 63 percent above that of someone who has always lived
in a smoke-free home.13
• Asthma: Secondhand smoke worsens asthma
symptoms, especially in children.14
• Risks During Pregnancy: Regular exposure
to secondhand smoke during early pregnancy doubles a woman’s
risk of having a baby with low-birth weight, even if she did not
smoke.15
• Deaths from Secondhand Smoke: Each year
in the United States, secondhand smoke exposure causes:
3,000 deaths due to lung cancer
35,000 to 62,000 deaths due to ischemic heart disease, and
1,900 to 2,700 deaths due to sudden infant death syndrome.16
• Leading Cause of Preventable Death: Studies
rank secondhand smoke as the third leading cause of preventable
death in the United States, after active smoking and alcohol use,
killing 53,000 nonsmokers each year.17
• Children’s Health: Every day, over
15 million children in the U.S. are exposed to secondhand smoke
in the home, with countless others exposed in public places.18 Children
have twice the level of continine in their blood that adults do.
Continine is found in the blood of someone who is a smoker or who
has been exposed to secondhand smoke.19 Children of any age who
are exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to suffer from asthma,
middle ear infections and respiratory infections. They are also
at risk of developing lung cancer or heart disease later in life.
The U.S. EPA estimates that every year, between 150,000 and 300,000
children under 1-1/2 years of age get bronchitis or pneumonia from
breathing secondhand tobacco smoke, resulting in thousands of hospitalizations.
According to the EPA, “In children under 18 years of age,
secondhand smoke exposure also results in more coughing and wheezing,
a small but significant decrease in lung function, and an increase
in fluid in the middle ear. Children with asthma have more frequent
and more severe asthma attacks because of exposure to secondhand
smoke, which is also a risk factor for the onset of asthma in children
who did not previously have symptoms.”20
• Worker’s Health: Worker health complaints
are often related to indoor air quality. More than 59 percent of
nonsmoking employees experience discomfort caused by secondhand
smoke in workplaces that permit smoking.21 Restaurant and bar workers
are disproportionately affected by secondhand smoke. Studies show
that levels of secondhand smoke are 1.6 to 2.0 times higher in restaurants
and 3.9 to 6.1 times higher in bars than in office work places or
other businesses.22 It has been estimated that passive smoking in
the workplace poses 200 times the acceptable risk for lung cancer,
and 2,000 times the acceptable risk for heart disease.23 Workers
exposed to secondhand smoke in the workplace are 34 percent more
likely to develop lung cancer.24
• Pets: Secondhand smoke is not only bad
for humans, but can increase a pet’s risk of disease. In a
study, cats that were frequently exposed to secondhand smoke had
a much higher risk of developing a common form of feline cancer.25
We are reducing tobacco use among residents of Ohio County. Specifically,
we strives to eliminate individuals’ exposure to the health
hazards of secondhand smoke in public places.
1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (1993, July). What
You Can Do About Secondhand Smoke as Parents, Decision Makers, and
Building Occupants.
2 U.S. EPA. (1989). Indoor Air Facts: Environmental Tobacco Smoke.
3 U.S. EPA. (1994, June). Setting the Record Straight: Secondhand
Smoke Is a Preventable Health Risk. (EPA-402-F-94-005). See www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs.
4 U.S. EPA. (1993, July). What You Can Do About Secondhand Smoke
as Parents, Decision Makers, and Building Occupants.
5 Stefanadis, C., et al. (1998, March 15). Unfavorable effects of
passive smoking on aortic function in men. Annals of Internal Medicine,
128(6), 426-34.
6 Osuka, R., et al. (2001) Acute effects of passive smoking on the
coronary circulation in healthy young adults. Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA), 286, 436-441.
7 Valkonen, M. & Kuusi, T. (1998, May 26). Passive smoking induces
atherogenic changes in low-density lipoprotein. Circulation, 97(20),
2012-6.
8 Pope, C.A., et al. (2001, July). Acute exposure to environmental
tobacco smoke and heart rate variability. Environmental Health Perspectives,
109(7), 711-6.
9 Department of Biostatics and Epidemiology, Tulane University.
(1999, March 25). New England Journal of Medicine.
10 Burghuber, O.C., Punzengruber, C., Sinzinger, H., Haber, P.,
& Silberbauer, K. (1986, July). Platelet sensitivity to prostacyclin
in smokers and non-smokers. Chest, 90(1), 34-8.
11 U.S. EPA. (1992, December). Respiratory Health Effects of Passive
Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders.
12 U.S. EPA. (1994, June). Setting the Record Straight: Secondhand
Smoke Is a Preventable Health Risk. (EPA-402-F-94-005). See www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs.
13 International Journal of Cancer. (2001, July).
14 Ulrick, C.S., & Lange, P. (2002). Cigarette smoking and asthma.
Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease, 54(4), 349-353.
15 Dejin-Karlsson et al. (1998) Does passive smoking early in pregnancy
increase the risk of small-for-gestational-age infants? American
Journal of Public Health, 88.
16 News releases from the California Department of Health Services.
(1998, June and October).
17 Glatz, S.A. & Parmley, W. (1991). American Heart Association
Circulation, 83, 1-12; Taylor, A., Johnson, D., & Kazimi, H.
(1992). American Heart Association Circulation, 699-702. Glantz
et al. (1995). Journal of American Medicine, 273-13, 1047-1053.
18 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (1997, November
7). State-specific prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults,
and children’s and adolescent’s exposure to environmental
tobacco smoke—United States 1996. Morbidity and Mortality
Weekly Report (MMWR), 46(44), 1038-1043.
19 CDC. (2003, January 31). Second National Report on Human Exposure
to Environmental Chemicals.
20 U.S. EPA. (1994, June). Setting the Record Straight: Secondhand
Smoke Is a Preventable Health Risk. (EPA-402-F-94-005). See www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs.
21 CDC, (1992). MMWR.
22 Siegel, M. (1993). Involuntary smoking in the restaurant workplace:
a review of employee exposure and health effect. JAMA, 270, 490-493.
23 U.S. EPA. (1993, August). An enforceable indoor air quality standard
for environmental tobacco smoke in the workplace, 13(4), 463-475.
24 CDC. (1996).
25 Bertone, E.R., Snyder, L.A., & Moore, A.S. (2002). Environmental
tobacco smoke and risk of malignant lymphoma in pet cats. American
Journal of Epidemiology, 156, 268-273.
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