More Than 600,000 People Killed by 2nd-Hand Smoke

[edhopper]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/wireStory?id=12245285

"Secondhand smoke kills more than 600,000 people worldwide every year, according to a new study.
In the first look at the global impact of secondhand smoking, researchers analyzed data from 2004 for 192 countries. They found 40 percent of children and more than 30 percent of non-smoking men and women regularly breathe in secondhand smoke."

Come on smokers, defend your lethal addiction again.

[SidDithers]

1. Comparisons to auto exhaust in 3...2...1...nt

Sid

[Kalyke]

4. Considering the W.H.O. has reported an increase in lung cancer,

but a decrease in smoking, I'd say the comparison to auto exhaust, corporate pollution, etc., SHOULD be looked at.

[hobbit709]

7. But facts won't bother the antismoking fanatics.

fanatics are never swayed by hard data, left, right or up and down.

[csziggy]

2. Having spent Thanksgiving with my chain smoker MIL, I am so angry at cigarette companies

She began smoking when she was sixteen, back when the cigarette companies had doctors in their ads telling people how great smoking was. She chain smoked most of her life. Hubby, her oldest son had serious asthma until he moved away from her, when suddenly it cleared up - no doctor ever asked her about her smoking around her children.

In the early 1980s doctors removed a cancer that took 40% of one lung. Her idiot doctor told her it was not caused by her incessant smoking and let her go back to smoking as soon as she was out of the hospital. She's now got COPD and has to carry an oxygen tank around with her - but she still smokes as often as she gets a chance. Yesterday, if she walked twenty feet across the room, she was fighting for enough breath to stay alive.

She's tried to stop, she is just too addicted. At this point, no one has the heart to harass her about it. We all know that it has effective killed her already and it is too late. I don't know if she will be with us for another Thanksgiving.

And now her children could be subject to the same illnesses she got from her addiction, just by being around her before they could make a decision about their lifestyle. Only one of her five children smoke. The rest of them won't even let smokers indulge in their homes.

For those who think smoking is "cool" get a grip - MIL looks twenty years older than my Mom. My Mom is eight years older than MIL, still does all her own cooking and cleaning, most of her own yard work and startled her new doctor who by looking at her thought she was twenty years younger than the age on her charts. MIL had a much easier life than my Mom - she was upper middle class and never had to work outside the home a day in her life. My Mom grew up on a farm with no electricity or running water, worked hard, had to work to help support our family during lean times.

So if you want to look older than your calendar years, have a horrible old age and suffer from chronic lack of oxygen, be "cool" - smoke.

[Ian David]

3. ...

[Morning Dew]

5. I only smoke near Republicans.

Just doing my part.

[neverforget]

6. Popcorn anyone?

:popcorn:

[donheld]

12. How bout some

:beer:

[devilgrrl]

8. I hear second hand smoke causes global warming.

:popcorn::beer::popcorn:

[HockeyMom]

9. THIRD Hand Smoking

Second hand not enough for you? They have now come up with a third hand one. Just being around the CLOTHING of smokers can give you lung cancer. I kid you not.

Watch out people. Maybe you can SEE if somebody is smoking around you, but how will you KNOW if somebody near MIGHT have smoked? Get real close and sniff them? Oooooo, no. You can get cancer that way!!!!!

Give me a break. These medical people are crazy. Just like telling a 5'0" 90 lb. woman that because her 23 inch waist is too big for her 31 inch hips, she has a "high" waist to hip ratio and is going to have a HEART ATTACK unless she EXERCISES and DIETS to get that waist down to WHAT? 19 inches?????

It's stories like these that give them ZERO credibility, people. Smoking and weight. Weight and smoking. Endless, crap.

[GeorgeGist]

10. Hmmm ...

now why are cigarettes legal?

Oh yeah, governments make more profit than the manufacturers.

[Hannah Bell]

11. you mean industrial & auto emissions?

c'mon, defend the hypocrisy.

[The Midway Rebel]

13. It may not kill me but...

Gotdamn that shit STINKS!

[Odin2005]

14. My mom's smoking caused me to have constant ear infections when I was little.

That shit is dangerous.

[Balbus]

15. People should try smoking with the other hand.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

16. I cannot be friends with smokers.

If I am around a smoker I will have bronchitis and a raging sinus infection in 48 hours. I will be sick as a dog exactly two days later & have to go to the doctor and get a shot of antibiotic. I can't be around cats either.

My mom smoked when I was a kid and I had a constant runny nose and sinus infections. She stopped smoking when I was about ten.