HEALTHY LIVING
SECONDHAND SMOK B Y
M A R Y
B R O L L E Y
Although they aren’t yet old enough to vote, a group of suburban Houston middle schoolers is pushing for a law that will make their neighborhoods safer. They want smoking banned in all public places in Pearland, a bedroom community of 41,000 residents; and the students from David Bean’s science class at Sablatura Middle School collected 418 signatures to back them up. Presented with the petition, the Pearland City Council decided a smoking ban should be sent before the city’s voters this November. The children’s well-publicized plea for smoke-free public places brought attention to the issue of secondhand smoke — a threat to children’s safety that gets far less attention than kidnappings, injuries or exposure to drugs. “As awareness grows about the dangers of smoking around others — especially children — it might help people quit,” said Dr. Mario Gonzalez, a pulmonary specialist at The Methodist Hospital. “Parents want to protect their children.” Gonzalez has seen the effects of secondhand smoke in his patients who suffer from lung diseases and lung cancer, as well as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. “It sneaks up on them,” he said. “They never smoked, and yet they are suffering.” Doctors believe environmental tobacco exposure, or secondhand smoke, causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year. Tens of thousands more die of coronary heart disease believed to be caused by exposure to secondhand smoke. Even for nonsmokers, the smoke from a cigarette, cigar or pipe is potent. It contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic. In fact, it has been classified as a Group A carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency. Over the last 20 years, warnings about secondhand smoke have increased. Lately, the drumbeat has gotten louder. The very public lung cancer death in 2006 of 44-year-old Dana Reeve, a nonsmoker who was the wife of the late Christopher Reeve, brought the subject to the forefront. 36 VOLUME 4, NUMBER 3
One out of five women diagnosed with lung cancer has never smoked. It’s no secret that lung cancer is lethal. About 160,000 Americans die from it each year. That’s more than breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer combined. And although 87 percent of those who develop lung cancer are or have been smokers, the remaining 13 percent who get lung cancer without ever having smoked themselves constitute “an overlooked minority,” according to Newsweek magazine. The cancer is every bit as lethal for them, killing 60 percent within a year and 85 percent within five years. A 2006 U.S. Surgeon General’s report focusing on the effects of secondhand smoke stated that although progress has been made, sustained efforts are required to protect the more than 126 million Americans who continue to be regularly exposed to secondhand smoke in the home, at work and in enclosed public places. Further, the report found that even the most sophisticated ventilation systems can’t completely eliminate secondhand smoke exposure. Secondhand smoke is especially dangerous to those least able to protect themselves from exposure — infants, children and the elderly. The Surgeon General’s report noted that because the bodies of infants and children are still developing, they are especially vulnerable to the poisons in secondhand smoke.
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