What evidence is there that second-hand smoke is a health risk?
The evidence base that second-hand smoke harms health is substantial, and has been reviewed extensively, both in this country by the Government’s independent Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health, and overseas. The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer’s report ‘Tobacco Smoke and Involuntary Smoking’ published in 2004 reviewed the evidence of the health risks associated with smoking and second-hand smoke – that report is over 1,400 pages long. The US Surgeon General published a 700 page report in June 2007 that examined a great deal of evidence and found that even brief second-hand smoke exposure can cause immediate harm. The report says the only way to protect non-smokers from the dangerous chemicals in second-hand smoke is to eliminate smoking indoors and that exposure of adults to second-hand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer. The Surgeon General said on the public
The evidence base that second-hand smoke harms health is substantial, and has been reviewed extensively, both in this country by the Government’s independent Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health, and overseas. The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer’s report ‘Tobacco Smoke and Involuntary Smoking’ published in 2004 reviewed the evidence of the health risks associated with smoking and second-hand smoke – that report is over 1,400 pages long. The US Surgeon General published a 700 page report in June this year that examined a great deal of evidence and found that even brief second-hand smoke exposure can cause immediate harm. The report says the only way to protect non-smokers from the dangerous chemicals in second-hand smoke is to eliminate smoking indoors and that exposure of adults to second-hand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer. The Surgeon General said on the p
