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Health Effects of Secondhand Smoke
In Nonsmoking Adults:
- Lung Cancer
- Heart Disease
In Children:
Asthma
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Bronchitis and Pneumonia
Ear Infections
What is Secondhand Smoke?
- Secondhand smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a
cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers.
- This mixture contains more than 4,000 substances, more than 40 of which are known to
cause cancer in humans or animals and many of which are strong irritants.
- Secondhand smoke is also called environmental tobacco smoke
(ETS); exposure to
secondhand smoke is called involuntary smoking or passive smoking.
Adult Nonsmokers
Secondhand smoke has been classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
as a known cause of lung cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen). In 2000, the National
Institutes of Health formally listed secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen in its 9th
Report on Carcinogens. (NIH, 2000 http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/may2000/niehs-15.htm
)
Secondhand smoke is estimated by EPA to cause approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths
in nonsmokers each year.
Cal EPA found that secondhand smoke causes
increased risk of death from heart disease.
Health Effects of
Secondhand Smoke
The EPA in its 1992 risk assessment Respiratory Health Effects
of Passive Smoking - Lung Cancer and Other Disorders, and the California
Environmental Protection Agency (Cal EPA) in its 1997 report Health Effects of
Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke have found that exposure to
secondhand smoke causes increased risk for serious health effects in both nonsmoking
adults and children. (These findings have been supported and
expanded by several national and international studies.)
Secondhand Smoke is a Serious Health Risk to Children
- The developing lungs of young children are severely affected by exposure to secondhand
smoke because children are particularly vulnerable to secondhand smoke. This is likely due
to several factors, including that children are still developing physically, have higher
breathing rates than adults, and have little control over their indoor environments.
Children receiving high doses of secondhand smoke, such as those with smoking mothers, run
the greatest relative risk of experiencing damaging health effects.
- Children with asthma are
especially at risk. EPA estimates that exposure to secondhand smoke increases the number
of episodes and severity of symptoms in 200,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.
Moreover, secondhand smoke is a risk factor for new cases of asthma in children who have
not previously exhibited asthma symptoms.
- Cal EPA found that exposure to secondhand smoke
causes increased risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
- Infants and young children whose parents smoke are among the most seriously affected by
exposure to secondhand smoke, being at increased risk of lower respiratory tract
infections, such as pneumonia and bronchitis. EPA estimates that secondhand smoke
is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in
infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000
hospitalizations each year.
- Cal EPA found that exposure to secondhand smoke
increases the risk for middle ear infections in children.
U.S. EPA and California EPA Studies
Respiratory Health Effects of
Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders , US EPA, EPA/600/6-90/006
F, 01 Dec 1992. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and
Development, Office of Health and Environmental Assessment, Washington, DC, 525
California EPA Report Health Effects of Exposure
to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (1997): www.oehha.org/air/environmental_tobacco/index.html
the California EPA report was also republished by NCI (1999) as part of NCI's
tobacco monograph series: rex.nci.nih.gov/NCI_MONOGRAPHS/MONO10/MONO10.HTM
Other Studies
Legal Challenge to EPA’s 1993 Secondhand Smoke Risk Assessment Dismissed
On March 23, 2003, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina
formally dismissed the tobacco industry’s lawsuit challenging EPA’s landmark
1993 risk assessment on the respiratory health effects of secondhand smoke. The dismissal
followed a December ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit
that the EPA risk assessment was a statutorily authorized scientific report and was not
subject to judicial review.
The 1993 EPA report concluded that secondhand smoke is a known human – or Group
A-- carcinogen, responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in
nonsmokers. EPA’s risk assessment further determined that children exposed to
secondhand smoke are at increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as
bronchitis and pneumonia, increased prevalence of other serious respiratory conditions
such as asthma and other conditions such as ear infections.
The U.S. Surgeon General and National Research Council of the National Academy of
Sciences, among others, have reached the same or even stronger conclusions about the
health effects of secondhand smoke. In fact, in the ten years since the report was issued,
the science associating secondhand smoke with respiratory disease, as well as with other
health problems, has only grown stronger.
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