{"id":119,"date":"2018-06-16T12:58:03","date_gmt":"2018-06-16T11:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"\/?page_id=119"},"modified":"2018-06-16T12:58:03","modified_gmt":"2018-06-16T11:58:03","slug":"its-not-about-you-its-about-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/smokingoutthetruth.com\/the-paper\/the-crusaders\/its-not-about-you-its-about-me\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not about you, it\u2019s about me"},"content":{"rendered":"

The right of smokers to smoke ends where their behaviour affects the health and well-being of others.<\/em><\/strong>
\nC. Everett Koop, Surgeon General, 1982-1989<\/p>\n

The discussion above has looked at the risk of smoking to smokers but arguably the greatest success that the anti-tobacco industry has secured has been in making the risk of smoking at least as important to non-smokers as it is to smokers. The point at which this happened is perhaps easiest to link to the third \u201cWorld Conference on Tobacco and Health\u201d, held in New York in 1975 where among the conclusions of the conference<\/a> was one which stated \u201cPassive smokers should be investigated in a large scale study to determine if excess morbidity and\/or mortality occur\u201d.<\/p>\n

The first paper to suggest an increased risk to non-smokers from smokers was published in 1981, Hirayama\u2019s \u201cNon-smoking wives of heavy smokers have a higher risk of lung cancer: a study from Japan<\/a>\u201d. The research suggested that wives of heavy smokers had a higher risk of developing lung cancer, and that the risk was dose-responsive. The relative risk of lung cancer was 1.61 for wives whose husbands were ex-smokers or smoked less than 20 cigarettes a day and 2.1 where husbands smoked more than 20 a day. Although there was statistical significance to the result, it is also the case that the spouses were self-certified as non-smokers. Given the societal views of female smoking in Japan, this was not necessarily the case.<\/p>\n

Further papers followed over the years and by 1986 the Surgeon General\u2019s specific report on the risks of passive smoking<\/a> stated that<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Involuntary smoking is a cause of disease, including lung cancer, in healthy non-smokers.<\/li>\n
  2. The children of parents who smoke compared with the children of non-smoking parents have an increased frequency of respiratory infections, increased respiratory symptoms, and slightly smaller rates in increase in lung function as the lung matures.<\/li>\n
  3. The simple separation of smokers and nonsmokers within the same air space may reduce, but does not eliminate, the exposure of nonsmokers to environmental tobacco smoke.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The risks of second hand smoke increased greatly over the following 20 years as by the 2006 report<\/a> the Surgeon General included as a major conclusion \u201cThere is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke\u201d.<\/p>\n

    In the intervening period WHO had conducted a study<\/a> of Environmental Tobacco Smoke and lung cancer in Europe. It was a case control study with a large sample size (650 patients with lung cancer and 1,542 controls) conducted over 12 centres in seven European countries over a period of seven years. The study was one of the largest ever undertaken and, unlike many before and since, well designed. Unfortunately for the anti-smoking campaign it concluded that<\/p>\n