Sir Richard Doll said in 1985 that if you spend an hour a day in a room with a smoker is almost a hundred times more likely to have lung cancer in a non smoker in comparison with 20 years in a building which contains asbestos.In 1981 was made a study by Takeshi Hirayama and it showed the first important evidence on the danger of passive smoking. The study was made on lung cancer in Japanese women who are not smokers, but are married to men who are smoking.

In the tobacco industry in the same period with the evidence were launched a multimillion dollar campaign to show the evidence was not true. There are some chemicals which are generated from smoking and burning tobacco. As a passive smoker, the person who is a non-smoker breathes “mainstream” smoke which has been inhaled and then exhaled by the smoker and “side stream” smoke which comes from the burning tip of the cigarettes.

The risk of having lung cancer is increased to non smokers from 20 to 30 percent to those exposed to passive smoking. And to have a heart disease is 23 percent. Children are especially to the risk from adults who are smoking. There are some dangerous adverse effects like: wheezing and coughing, bronchitis and pneumonia, middle ear disease, worsening of asthma, cardiovascular disease in adulthood and neurobehavioral impairment.

A fetus from a pregnant woman can be harmed if the woman is staying near a person who is smoking. And there are many other effects when the child is exposed to passive smoking after the birth.

Tags: passive smoking

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