Q & A Library

Of course, you're right. Secondhand smoke is particularly harmful to children. In fact, new research in England has confirmed earlier findings that children exposed to secondhand smoke are at much higher than normal risk for lung cancer later in life than those who weren't exposed. And researchers in Hong Kong recently found that nonsmoking adults who were exposed to secondhand smoke at home were 24 percent more likely to die from any cause including lung cancer, other lung diseases, other types of cancer, heart disease, and stroke if there was one smoker at home. If there were two smokers in the household, the nonsmokers chance of dying increased by 74 percent. Both studies were published in the February 5, 2005 issue of the British Medical Journal.

The British study included more than 123,000 people who were nonsmokers or had given up smoking at least ten years before joining the study. The former smokers were at a higher risk of lung cancer than those who had never smoked, but among the nonsmokers, those who were exposed to secondhand smoke at home when they were growing up had more than triple the normal risk.

The statistics below, from the American Lung Association, may help you make your point about the dangers of secondhand smoke:

• Secondhand smoke causes about 3,000 deaths each year from lung cancer among people who don't smoke.
• Secondhand smoke is estimated to cause about 35,000 deaths annually from heart disease among nonsmokers.
• Children who breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to suffer from pneumonia, bronchitis and other lung diseases.
• Children who breathe secondhand smoke have more ear infections and are more likely to develop asthma (among all youngsters with asthma, those who breathe secondhand smoke have more frequent attacks).
• Infants and children under 18 months of age who breathe secondhand smoke develop an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 infections, such as bronchitis and pneumonia, every year resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations.

I'm sure your mother-in-law wouldn't willingly put her grandchildren's health at risk. Perhaps the information above will persuade her to curb her smoking when she's taking care of your kids.

Andrew Weil, M.D.