Can second hand smoke kill kid and has it?

Answer 1

Secondhand smoke can cause harm in many ways. Each year in the United States alone, it is responsible for:

• An estimated 46,000 deaths from Heart disease in people who are current non-smokers
• About 3,400 nonsmoking adults die of lung cancer as a result of breathing SHS
• Worse Asthma and asthma -related problems in up to 1 million asthmatic children
• Between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in children under 18 months of age, and lung infections resulting in 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations each year

Secondhand smoke (SHS) is also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). SHS is a mixture of 2 forms of smoke that come from burning tobacco:

• Sidestream smoke - the smoke that comes from the end of a lighted cigarette, pipe, or cigar

• and

• Mainstream smoke - the smoke that is exhaled by a smoker

Even though we think of these as the same, they aren't. The sidestream smoke has higher concentrations of cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) than the mainstream smoke. And, it contains smaller particles than mainstream smoke, which make their way into the body's cells more easily.

When non-smokers are exposed to SHS it is called involuntary smoking or passive smoking. Non-smokers who breathe in SHS take in nicotine and other toxic chemicals just like smokers do. The more SHS you are exposed to, the higher the level of these harmful chemicals in your body.

Secondhand smoke is classified as a "known human carcinogen" (cancer-causing agent) by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization.

Tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemical compounds. More than 250 of these chemicals are known to be harmful, and at least 69 are known to cause cancer.

SHS has been linked to lung cancer. There is also some evidence suggesting it may be linked with childhood leukemia and cancers of the larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), brain, bladder, rectum, stomach, and breast.