Propaganda Files: Second-hand smoke kills 600,000 annually!
LONDON, England - November 26, 2010 - Second-hand tobacco smoke kills upward of 600,000 people every year, nearly a third of them children, according to a first-ever global assessment released Friday.
Unlike "lifestyle" diseases, which stem largely from individual choice, the victims of passive smoking pay the ultimate price for the health-wrecking behaviour of others, especially family members.
Among non-smokers worldwide, 40% of children, 35% of women and 33% of men were exposed to second-hand smoke in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available across the 192 countries examined.
When added to the 5.1 million fatalities attributable to active smoking, the final death toll from tobacco for 2004 was more than 5.7 million people, the study concluded.
Nearly half the passive-smoking deaths occurred in women, with the rest divided almost equally between children and men, said the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Ed. Note: As a physician’s son, I have had the opportunity to look at X-rays of a woman married to a chain smoker, who was exposed to second-hand smoke in close quarters for many years, and whose lungs nevertheless looked just about perfect. Second hand smoke is NOT a danger to nonsmokers!
