Passive smoking kills 600k every year

Last Updated on Monday, 29 November 2010 12:44 Saturday, 27 November 2010 00:15

The first compressive study of passive smoking has revealed that upwards of 600,000 people die each year from the effects and nearly a third of the dead are children. Passive smoking is the inhaling of tobacco smoke from others (second-hand smoke) and those at risk of passive smoking are those closest to the smoker. Children feature highly in the study due to smoking in the home. The study is published in this edition of the British medical journal, The Lancet.

192 countries were included in the study. Among non-smokers, 40 per cent of children, 35 per cent of women and 33 per cent of men were exposed to second-hand smoke in 2004. Smoking killed 5.1 million people in 2004, and the results of this survey conclude that including the effects of passive smoking increased the total of tobacco related fatalities to 5.7 million.

Worryingly, it seems men still haven't learned the dangers of forcing their families to breathe their second hand smoke. Half the passive-smoking deaths were in women, with the rest divided equally between children and men. 60 per cent of deaths were caused by heart disease and 30 per cent by lower respiratory infections, followed by asthma and lung cancer.

In total, passive smoking accounted for one percent of worldwide deaths in 2004. To put it in starter terms, it means that one in every hundred deaths is due to passive smoking.

For children, poverty made the chances of dying from passive smoking much greater. While the adult to child ration of fatalities in Europe was 35,388 to 71, in Africa the ration was a startling 9,514 to 43,375. "Children's exposure to second-hand smoke most likely happens at home... Infectious diseases and tobacco seems to be a deadly combination," the researchers wrote. Passive smoking is particularly dangerous for children, said the study, and can place them at higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, pneumonia and asthma.

South East Asia and Africa came out worst in the survey with a stunning 165,000 children killed because of passive smoking. Those children were more exposed than any other children to second hand smoke, primarily in their home.

Annette Pruss-Ustun said recent restrictions on smoking in public places and in bars and restaurants had cut exposure to second hand smoke by 90 per cent. Anti-smoking regulations were also helping resulting in fewer people smoking.

"This helps us understand the real toll of tobacco," said Armando Peruga, from the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Tobacco-Free Initiative, who led the study.

The study recommended applying the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. That includes several measures including advertising bans, tax hikes on tobacco and nondescript packaging. Pruss-Ustun wrote that "Policy-makers should bear in mind that enforcing complete smoke-free laws will probably substantially reduce the number of deaths attributable to exposure to second-hand smoke within the first year of its implementation, with accompanying reduction in costs of illness in social and health systems."