World No Tobacco Day 2007

MAY 31

Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world. It is well known that half the people who smoke regularly today – about 650 million people – will eventually be killed by tobacco. Equally alarming is the fact that hundreds of thousands of people who have never smoked die each year from diseases caused by breathing second-hand tobacco smoke.

There is no doubt: breathing second-hand tobacco smoke (SHS) is very dangerous to your health. It causes cancer, as well as many serious respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in children and adults, often leading to death. There is no safe level of human exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.

Rigorous research says: More information

These are the indisputable conclusions reached by international and national health authorities, backed up by extensive rigorously reviewed and published research results, over many years. Three recent major publications remind us of these facts:

- The 2004 IARC Monograph 83: Tobacco Smoke and Involuntary Smoking

- The 2005 California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) Environmental Health Hazard Assessment of Environmental Tobacco Smoke

- The 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's Report on The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke