Passive smoking 'kills 600,000' worldwide (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

The first global study into the effects of passive smoking has found it causes 600,000 deaths every year.

One-third of those killed are children, often exposed to smoke at home, the World Health Organization (WHO) found.

The study, in 192 countries, found that passive smoking is particularly dangerous for children, said to be at higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, pneumonia and asthma.

Passive smoking causes heart disease, respiratory illness and lung cancer.

"This helps us understand the real toll of tobacco," said Armando Peruga, of the WHO's Tobacco-Free Initiative, who led the study.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11844169

[HillbillyBob]

1. What about the toll that fossil fuel smoke/ particulates takes

on our health, smokin ain't squat to living downwind from a coal burning power plant. and a lot of folks do not have a choice in where they live in that smoke shadow.

[HockeyMom]

3. I have to stand outside at school

opening doors and putting kids on buses at school in Florida. There are NO State Inspections here. Do you have any idea what the exhaust from these cars and BUSES smells like? I do SMOKE and cough my brains out from these fumes. Wonder how the NON-SMOKERS deal with this? Smell cigarette smoke? ROFL NO COMPARISON to this.

[Zoeisright]

6. You're right, there is no comparison.

600,000 deaths due to passive smoking is far more than the 24,000 deaths due to car exhaust.

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5886437_harmful-effects-car-exhaust.html

But cars actually perform a useful service. Unlike cigarettes, which exist only to kill.

Typical false equivalency from a denier.

[HockeyMom]

7. I'm an old lady

Denier? I am in my 60s and been smoking for 45 years. According to these doctors, I should be dead by now. Whatever. I will grant you the right to not smoke in front of you, third hand smoking (clothing) notwithstanding, but it is MY RIGHT to do with my body as I so choose. Little bit of advice from a Senior. We are all going to die sooner or later, of SOMETHING. At my age, I have seen friends and relatives die 20, 30, and even 40 years ago. The majority of them never smoked a day in their lives.

At least I will die happy not worrying about smoking, not eating this or that, worrying about my weight (100 lbs), or anything else.

Leave us old people alone.

[evirus]

8. typical aragant individualism

you're sample size is one, and you have no controlled variables, in other words your anecdote means jack squat. and this topic wasn't about the smokers who are practicing their "right" to smoke its about the people who are effected by your "rights" just because you have the right to do something that all the evidence says gives you a huge risk of cancer, doesn't mean you should have the right to subject other people to your decision by passing on that risk to them.

[Taverner]

2. BS. There is no way to get second hand smoke outside

Seriously - they are not stripping out the deaths attributable to auto exhaust, which are far more dangerous

[KT2000]

4. This points out the ridiculous

If say, a train derails and you are exposed to a dangerous toxin and get sick, with permanent health issues, you may sue. The defense lawyers would require you to fill out an exposure questionnaire that may include:
do you wear mascara?
how many times a day do you pass your laundry facilities?
do you use pesticides inside and/or outside the home?
ETC - there would be pages of these questions.

More likely than not, the case would be lost because a person's exposures are so numerous that it casts doubt on the source of the illness - even though common sense may tell us otherwise. Scientifically it cannot be proven to the satisfaction of our legal system.

The papers implicating tobacco in so many illnesses is obscuring the dangers of the many other toxic chemicals that are found in so many products.
There is a lot of money for tobacco research, the researchers are not tarred by wealthy corporations but it is lopsided science.

[Yavapai]

5. ...and 72.82% of all statistics are pulled right out of someone's ass!

Including the one on my subject line.