/PRNewswire-/ -- The following is a statement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:
The U.S. Surgeon General's report released today provides dramatic new evidence that smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke cause immediate harm to the human body, triggering physical changes that lead to cancer, heart attacks, lung disease and many other serious illnesses, including damage to the reproductive systems of both men and women.
The report also concludes that design changes to cigarettes, such as filter ventilation, flavoring agents and added chemical ingredients, have over time made them more addictive. Today's cigarettes deliver nicotine more efficiently to the brain, addicting kids more quickly and making it harder for smokers to quit. The tobacco industry's decades-long effort to finely engineer cigarettes, along with its use of deceptive (and now-banned) cigarette descriptions such as "light" and "low-tar," have undermined smoking prevention and cessation efforts, the report says.
Nearly 50 years after the first Surgeon General's report on tobacco was released in 1964, this latest report is a stark reminder of how lethal and addictive smoking truly is, with every cigarette doing you damage. It sends an unmistakable message to elected officials at all levels that reducing smoking is one of the most effective actions we can take to improve the nation's health and prevent some of the most deadly and costly diseases in our society.
The report also sends important messages to America's kids and smokers. If you do not smoke, don't start. If you do smoke, try to quit immediately and get the help you need to succeed. This is true not only for regular smokers, but also for the 22 percent of smokers who do not smoke every day and to those who consider themselves only "social" smokers and may think they are not at risk. This report's message is clear: You are at risk. There is no risk-free level of exposure to tobacco smoke, and you don't have to be a heavy or long-time smoker to develop a smoking-related disease.
The report underscores the importance of actions that we know work to prevent kids from starting to smoke, help smokers quit and protect everyone's right to breathe clean air, free of the hundreds of toxic chemicals in secondhand smoke. Despite progress in making workplaces and public spaces smoke-free, four in ten non-smokers – and more than half of children between 3 and 11 – are still exposed to secondhand smoke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No one should have to breathe secondhand smoke at work or in public places, and parents should ensure that homes, cars and other places frequented by children are smoke-free.
Federal, state and local policymakers must redouble their efforts to implement proven measures that reduce tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke.
The federal government must fund and aggressively implement the new tobacco prevention plan that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced last month. The plan includes a national media campaign to prevent kids from smoking and encourage smokers to quit; expanded assistance and health insurance coverage for smokers trying to quit; effective regulation of tobacco products and marketing; and accelerated research to enhance strategies to reduce tobacco use.
The Food and Drug Administration must continue to vigorously exercise its new authority to regulate the manufacture, marketing and sale of tobacco products to keep these harmful products away from our children and reduce their devastating effects on public health.
The states must step up their efforts to reduce tobacco use by increasing tobacco taxes, enacting smoke-free workplace laws and fully funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs at levels recommended by the CDC. Unfortunately, states have slashed funding for tobacco prevention programs by 28 percent in the past three years and now fund such programs at the lowest level since 1999, when they first received funds from the settlement of state lawsuits against the tobacco industry. The states this year (Fiscal Year 2011) will collect $25.3 billion in revenue from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only two percent of it — $517.9 million — on programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit.
The Surgeon General's report details the serious health effects of even brief exposure to tobacco smoke. It concludes that:
* Tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds, including hundreds that are toxic and at least 70 that cause cancer.
* Every exposure to the cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco smoke can damage DNA in a way that leads to cancer.
* Exposure to secondhand smoke has an immediate adverse impact on the cardiovascular system, damaging blood vessels, making blood more likely to clot and increasing risks for heart attack and stroke.
* Smoking makes it harder for women to get pregnant and can cause miscarriage, premature birth and low birth weight. It also harms male fertility.
The Surgeon General's report provides the grim details of how tobacco use kills more than 400,000 Americans each year and costs almost $100 billion in health care expenditures. It underscores the need for political will and urgent action to win the fight against tobacco.
The report, titled "How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease," can be found at: www.surgeongeneral.gov.
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Showing posts with label smoke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smoke. Show all posts
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Study raises concerns about outdoor second-hand smoke
Indoor smoking bans have forced smokers at bars and restaurants onto outdoor patios, but a new University of Georgia study in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that these outdoor smoking areas might be creating a new health hazard.
The study, thought to be the first to assess levels of a nicotine byproduct known as cotinine in nonsmokers exposed to second-hand smoke outdoors, found levels up to 162 percent greater than in the control group. The results appear in the November issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene.
“Indoor smoking bans have helped to create more of these outdoor environments where people are exposed to secondhand smoke,” said study co-author Luke Naeher, associate professor in the UGA College of Public Health. “We know from our previous study that there are measurable airborne levels of secondhand smoke in these environments, and we know from this study that we can measure internal exposure.
“Secondhand smoke contains several known carcinogens and the current thinking is that there is no safe level of exposure,” he added. “So the levels that we are seeing are a potential public health issue.”
Athens-Clarke County, Ga., enacted an indoor smoking ban in 2005, providing Naeher and his colleagues and ideal environment for their study. The team recruited 20 non-smoking adults and placed them in one of three environments: outside bars, outside restaurants and, for the control group, outside the UGA main library. Immediately before and after the six-hour study period, the volunteers gave a saliva sample that was tested for levels of cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine and a commonly used marker of tobacco exposure.
The team found an average increase in cotinine of 162 percent for the volunteers stationed at outdoor seating and standing areas at bars, a 102 percent increase for those outside of restaurants and a 16 percent increase for the control group near the library.
Naeher acknowledges that an exposure of six-hours is greater than what an average patron would experience but said that employees can be exposed for even longer periods.
“Anyone who works in that environment—waitresses, waiters or bouncers—may be there for up to six hours or longer,” Naeher said. “Across the country, a large number of people are occupationally exposed to second-hand smoke in this way.”
Studies that measured health outcomes following indoor smoking bans have credited the bans with lowering rates of heart attacks and respiratory illness, but Naeher said that the health impacts of outdoor second-hand smoke are still unknown.
In Naeher’s study, cotinine levels in the volunteers at the bar setting saw their levels increase from an average pre-exposure level of 0.069 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter) to an average post-exposure level of 0.182 ng/ml. The maximum value observed, however, was 0.959 ng/ml. To put that number into context, a widely cited study has determined that an average cotinine level of 0.4 ng/ml increases lung cancer deaths by 1 for every 1,000 people and increases heart disease deaths by 1 for every 100 people.
Still, the researchers caution that it’s too early to draw policy conclusions from their findings. Cotinine is a marker of exposure to tobacco, Naeher said, but is not a carcinogen. The team is currently planning a study that would measure levels of a molecule known as NNAL, which is a marker of tobacco exposure and a known carcinogen, in people exposed to second-hand smoke outdoors.
“Our study suggests that there is reason to be concerned about second-hand smoke levels outdoors,” said study co-author Gideon St. Helen, who is pursuing his Ph.D. through the university’s Interdisciplinary Toxicology Program, “and our findings are an incentive for us to do further studies to see what the effects of those levels are.”
The study was funded by the Northeast (Georgia) Health District, the Athens (Georgia) Community Wellness Council and the Athens Tobacco Prevention Coalition.
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The study, thought to be the first to assess levels of a nicotine byproduct known as cotinine in nonsmokers exposed to second-hand smoke outdoors, found levels up to 162 percent greater than in the control group. The results appear in the November issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene.
“Indoor smoking bans have helped to create more of these outdoor environments where people are exposed to secondhand smoke,” said study co-author Luke Naeher, associate professor in the UGA College of Public Health. “We know from our previous study that there are measurable airborne levels of secondhand smoke in these environments, and we know from this study that we can measure internal exposure.
“Secondhand smoke contains several known carcinogens and the current thinking is that there is no safe level of exposure,” he added. “So the levels that we are seeing are a potential public health issue.”
Athens-Clarke County, Ga., enacted an indoor smoking ban in 2005, providing Naeher and his colleagues and ideal environment for their study. The team recruited 20 non-smoking adults and placed them in one of three environments: outside bars, outside restaurants and, for the control group, outside the UGA main library. Immediately before and after the six-hour study period, the volunteers gave a saliva sample that was tested for levels of cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine and a commonly used marker of tobacco exposure.
The team found an average increase in cotinine of 162 percent for the volunteers stationed at outdoor seating and standing areas at bars, a 102 percent increase for those outside of restaurants and a 16 percent increase for the control group near the library.
Naeher acknowledges that an exposure of six-hours is greater than what an average patron would experience but said that employees can be exposed for even longer periods.
“Anyone who works in that environment—waitresses, waiters or bouncers—may be there for up to six hours or longer,” Naeher said. “Across the country, a large number of people are occupationally exposed to second-hand smoke in this way.”
Studies that measured health outcomes following indoor smoking bans have credited the bans with lowering rates of heart attacks and respiratory illness, but Naeher said that the health impacts of outdoor second-hand smoke are still unknown.
In Naeher’s study, cotinine levels in the volunteers at the bar setting saw their levels increase from an average pre-exposure level of 0.069 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter) to an average post-exposure level of 0.182 ng/ml. The maximum value observed, however, was 0.959 ng/ml. To put that number into context, a widely cited study has determined that an average cotinine level of 0.4 ng/ml increases lung cancer deaths by 1 for every 1,000 people and increases heart disease deaths by 1 for every 100 people.
Still, the researchers caution that it’s too early to draw policy conclusions from their findings. Cotinine is a marker of exposure to tobacco, Naeher said, but is not a carcinogen. The team is currently planning a study that would measure levels of a molecule known as NNAL, which is a marker of tobacco exposure and a known carcinogen, in people exposed to second-hand smoke outdoors.
“Our study suggests that there is reason to be concerned about second-hand smoke levels outdoors,” said study co-author Gideon St. Helen, who is pursuing his Ph.D. through the university’s Interdisciplinary Toxicology Program, “and our findings are an incentive for us to do further studies to see what the effects of those levels are.”
The study was funded by the Northeast (Georgia) Health District, the Athens (Georgia) Community Wellness Council and the Athens Tobacco Prevention Coalition.
-----
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