Stay away from tobacco smoke, when traveling & all the time!

HEALTH
Surgeon General: No safe level of secondhand smoke

Tuesday, June 27, 2006; Posted: 10:13 a.m. EDT (14:13 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Separate smoking sections don't cut it: Only
smoke-free buildings and public places truly protect nonsmokers from
the hazards of breathing in other people's tobacco smoke, says a
long-awaited surgeon general's report.

Some 126 million nonsmokers are exposed to secondhand smoke, what U.S.
Surgeon General Richard Carmona repeatedly calls "involuntary smoking"
that puts people at increased risk of death from lung cancer, heart
disease and other illnesses.

Moreover, there is no risk-free level of exposure to someone else's
drifting smoke, declares the report issued Tuesday -- a conclusion sure
to fuel already growing efforts at public smoking bans nationwide.
Fourteen states have passed what are considered comprehensive
smoke-free workplace laws, those that include restaurants and bars.

But the surgeon general is especially concerned about young children
who can't escape their parents' addiction in search of cleaner air:
Just over one in five children is exposed to secondhand smoke at home,
where workplace bans don't reach. Those children are at increased risk
of SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome; lung infections such as
pneumonia; ear infections; and more severe asthma. (Full story)

"Exposure to secondhand smoke remains an alarming public health
hazard," Carmona said. "Nonsmokers need protection through the
restriction of smoking in public places and workplaces" -- and by
smokers voluntarily not puffing around children.

The report won't surprise doctors. It isn't a new study but a
compilation of the best research on secondhand smoke, the most
comprehensive federal probe since the last surgeon general's report on
the topic in 1986, which declared secondhand smoke a cause of lung
cancer in nonsmokers.

Since then, numerous other health agencies have linked to secondhand
smoke to heart disease and other illnesses. Earlier this year,
California health officials estimated that secondhand smoke kills about
3,400 nonsmoking Americans annually from lung cancer, 46,000 from heart
disease, and 430 from SIDS.

The new surgeon general's report doesn't retally the deaths, but it
cites that toll.

The tobacco industry and some businesses, particularly restaurant and
bar owners concerned about loss of smoking customers, have challenged
some of the broadest public smoking bans in cities and states.

The new report gives new scientific ammunition against those
challenges, said Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

"There is no longer a scientific controversy that secondhand smoke is a
killer," he said. The report "eliminates any excuse from any state or
city for taking halfway measures to restrict smoking, or permitting
smoking in any indoor workplace."

Among other findings:

# Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air and ventilation
systems don't eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke.

# There is good evidence that comprehensive smoking bans, such as those
in New York City and Boston, don't economically hurt the hospitality
industry.

# Workplace smoking restrictions not only reduce secondhand smoke but
also discourage active smoking by employees.

# Secondhand smoke can act on the arteries so quickly that even a brief
pass through someone else's smoke can endanger people at high risk of
heart disease. Don't ever smoke around a sick relative, Carmona advised

# Living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker's risk of lung cancer and
heart disease by up to 30 percent.

# There isn't proof that secondhand smoke causes breast cancer,
although the evidence is suggestive. California earlier this year cited
that link in becoming the first state to declare secondhand smoke a
toxic air pollutant.

# On the plus side, blood measurements of a nicotine byproduct show
that exposure to secondhand smoke has decreased. Levels dropped by 75
percent in adults and 68 percent in children between the early 1990s
and 2002. However, not only has children's exposure declined less
rapidly, but levels of that byproduct among children are more than
twice as high as in nonsmoking adults.