Secondhand smoke takes a sizable toll on Americans’ health and productivity, particularly among black Americans, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).
Mining data collected between 2003 and 2006 by large government surveys, the researchers calculated that secondhand smoke kills 42,000 Americans each year, including nearly 900 infants. Secondhand smoke is linked to some of the same fatal illnesses caused by smoking, including heart and lung disease, and in babies, low birth weight, SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) and respiratory distress syndrome.
Overall, the researchers found that yearly deaths from secondhand smoke accounted for about 600,000 years of potential life lost, or an average of 14.2 years per person. The price tag for that lost productivity loss equaled $6.6 billion in total — about $158,000 per death.
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6 comments:
I would attribute these deaths to second hand bus and car exhaust.
A much more plausible excuse.
I personally think the 2nd hand smoke movement is not very different than the Al Gore BS. I used to smoke but now quit. I received NO Government assistance to do so. "They" don't want anyone to actually quit. If you don't quit, you are stupid and you will continue to finance some of these wild ass initiatives Annapolis seems to come up with. Be an a$$hole or be your own person.
Be an a$$hole or be your own person.
September 22, 2012 7:59 PM
I think you should follow your own advice. You seem to be one of the former.
Second hand smoke is a non issue compared to what we are being sold as food these days.
Adult's and children's livers are so compromised today due to the chemicals in the foods we eat. Notice how a reoccurance of cancer always comes back in the liver?
Food should be and needs to be labeled precisely and no vagueness should be accepted.
I still don't buy this second hand smoke crap.
I don't buy it either 1:44. The whole "concept" is laughable and even as a non smoker I see the hypocracy of these smoking laws. You can't smoke in a bar but you can drink alcohol which is a poison to the body and causes way more health problems (and social) than second hand smoke does.
Same with the "Super Moms" who don't want their offspring breathing smoke but all the while are shoveling poisons in their children's bodies contained in our food supply.
The latest that is making me laugh is NY's ban on Supersized drinks. This is a ploy by Coke/Pepsi to get people to buy 2 smaller sized drinks and nothing more. They are wise to the fact that these "SuperMoms" are so dense that all they have to say is it's for the health of the children and they fall for it everytime.
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