Secondhand Smoke
Facts About Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS)
- ETS, commonly known as secondhand smoke or passive smoke, is a mixture of the smoke from the burning end of a cigarette, pipe, or
cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers.
- The Environmental Protection Agency has classified ETS as a Group A carcinogen (known to cause cancer in humans.)
- There are at least 43 chemicals in secondhand smoke known to cause cancer.
- The annual death rate in the United States for people exposed to ETS is 53,000 (annual death rate for automobile accidents is 47,000.)
- More than 90% of Americans favor restricting or banning smoking in public places.
- All of the major causes of death among the elderly are associated with smoking or secondhand smoke - cancer, heart disease, and stroke.
- The Surgeon General of the United States reported that involuntary smoking could cause lung cancer in healthy nonsmokers.
- There is a wide gap between the percentage of non-smokers who believe they are exposed to secondhand smoke (37%) and the 88%
who actually are exposed.
References:
Centers For Disease Control & Prevention,
Americans for Non-Smokers Rights,
American Lung Association,
American Cancer Society,
The Center for Social Gerontology,
Environmental Protection Agency,
and Regional Municipality of Halton, Ontario, Canada
Funding for this project was made possible by funds received from the Office of Health Promotion, Illinois Department of Public Health.
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