|
|
|
|
|
|
What is Secondhand Smoke?
- Tobacco smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals, including 200 known poisons. Every time someone smokes, poisons such as benzene, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide are released into the air, which means that not only is the smoker inhaling them but so is everyone else around him. Many studies now show that this secondhand smoke can have harmful effects on nonsmokers and even cause them to develop diseases such as lung cancer and heart disease.
Sidestream Smoke
- Every time anyone lights,up a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, tobacco smoke enters the air from two sources. The first is mainstream smoke, which the smoker pulls through the mouthpiece when he inhales or puffs. Nonsmokers are also exposed to mainstream smoke after the smoker exhales it. The second, and even more dangerous source, is sidestream smoke, which goes directly into the air from the burning tobacco.
- Sidestream smoke-- which a nonsmoker inhales whenever he or she is around someone who's smoking -- actually has higher concentrations of some harmful compounds than the mainstream smoke inhaled by the smoker. Studies show that there are several cancer-causing substances, as well as more tar and nicotine, in sidestream smoke as compared to mainstream smoke.
- Most of the smoke in a room results from sidestream smoke. When nonsmokers breathe in this type of smoke from other people's cigarettes, cigars, and pipes, it is often called involuntary or passive smoking.
Secondhand Smoke and Lung Cancer
- The fact that cigarette smoking is the main cause of lung cancer in smokers is well-known. In 1986 the Surgeon General of the United States reported that involuntary smoking can cause lung cancer in healthy nonsmokers. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has now classified secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen. Additionally, recent studies indicate that secondhand smoke causes death from heart disease.
Smoke at the Workplace
- The Surgeon General's report of 1986 established that the simple separation of smokers and nonsmokers within the same air space may reduce but not eliminate the risk of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. As a result, an increasing number of state and local laws now restrict smoking at the workplace. The idea behind these laws is that the preferences of both nonsmokers and smokers should be considered, whenever possible. However, when these preferences conflict, the health and preferences of nonsmokers should come first.
|
|
Effects on Children
- Secondhand smoke has an especially bad effect on infants and children whose parents smoke. A number of studies show that in their first two years of life, babies of parents who smoke at home have a much higher rate of lung diseases such as bronchitis and pneumonia than babies with nonsmoking parents.
- A study involving children ages five-to-nine showed impaired lung function in youngsters who had smoking parents as compared with those whose parents were nonsmokers. And smoking by pregnant women seems to predispose premature babies to respiratory distress syndrome.
- Parents who smoke at home can aggravate symptoms in some children with asthma and even trigger asthma episodes. Parents should only smoke outside the home or, better yet, quit smoking altogether.
- Even among children without asthma, a team of' researchers found that acute respiratory illnesses happen twice as often to young children whose parents smoke around them as compared to those with nonsmoking parents. For example, secondhand smoke exposure is associated with 150,000 - 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia in infants and young children less than 18 months.
Tobacco Odors
- Burning tobacco smoke creates bad odors which also cling to people's clothes, hair, and even their skin. This contamination is so intense that when someone smokes in an air-conditioned room, the air-conditioning demands can jump as much as 600 percent in order to control the odors.
- The bad odors created by tobacco smoke also linger on. Long after a person has left a smokefilled room, they may still have the odor of cigarettes on their bodies and in the fabric of their clothes. This is because while certain chemicals created by burning tobacco cause bad odors, other chemicals actually help the odors to hold onto the surface that they penetrate.
- Smokers themselves are usually not sensitive to these odors because of the destructive effects that the smoke from their own cigarettes has on the inner linings of the smoker's nose.
Clean Air for Everyone
- Being able to breathe clean air, free from harmful, irritating tobacco smoke is a serious issue for everyone - at home, at work, and in other public and private places.
Purify your indoor air by disinfection, oxidation and particulate control.
Air purification units will purify your indoor air !!
|
Go back to the Mold Fact info page