Doctors have been warning for years that secondhand smoke leads to many types of illness. However, many children around the world live in areas where adults regularly smoke.
Journal Annals of Family Medicine recently published an article calling for doctors to start treating children’s contact with secondhand smoke as abuse. In that case, contact to secondhand smoke would be viewed much like physical abuse or neglect. The article says secondhand smoke causes many diseases in children. The article adds that no amount of secondhand smoke is safe.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree that secondhand smoke can cause serious health problems in children. They say that compared to children who grow up in homes without smokers, children with parents who smoke have smaller lungs and more illnesses.
However, several organizations for smokers’ rights in the U.S. say people have the right to smoke in their own homes. They say that many studies done on the effects of smoking on health, including studies on secondhand smoke, do not use good science.
The article about secondhand smoke and children comes at the same time the World Health Organization calls to fight against tobacco companies. Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the organization, says tobacco companies are trying to avoid and even weaken anti-tobacco laws. She warned the fight against tobacco companies is going to be difficult. But she added, “We should not give up until we make sure the tobacco industry goes out of business.”
Other leading public health researchers at the conference called for the sale of tobacco to end by 2040.
Those who want to see a tobacco-free world say they hope that in twenty years “only five percent of adults around the world will still smoke. A world where tobacco is out of sight, out of mind, and out of fashion—yet not prohibited—is achievable in less than two decades from now.” However, they say, such a world will need the full commitment from governments, civil society and international agencies.
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