Second-hand smoke is the name for smoke that is given off by a burning cigarette, cigar, or pipe. It is also called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a human carcinogen for which there is no safe level of exposure.1
Second-hand smoke:
- causes approximately 3000 deaths from lung cancer.1
- causes increases in attacks for about 20% of asthmatic children.1
- causes 30 times as many lung cancer deaths as all regulated pollutants.1
- can produce six times the pollution as a busy highway in a crowded, smoking-allowed restaurant.1
- causes up to 300,000 lung infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis) in infants and young children each year.1
- many of the same poisons found in the air around toxic waste dumps into the air.1
- is estimated to cause 37,000 heart disease deaths and 13,000 deaths from cancers other than lung cancer each year.2
- contains at least four known human carcinogens and 10 possible carcinogens
1 Cancer Facts & Figures - 2000, American Cancer Society.
2 American Heart Association, 1997. |
