Secondhand Smoke

Secondhand cigarette smoke is more dangerous than previously thought, Harvard researchers reported yesterday in a study with broad implications for public health policy and probable impact on at least one major lawsuit.The 10-year study, which tracked more than 32,000 healthy women who never smoked, has found that regular exposure to smoking by other people smoking at home or work almost doubled the risk of heart disease.Earlier studies have linked secondhand smoke to heart disease, but the new findings show the biggest increase in risk ever reported, and the researchers say it applies equally to men and women.

Talbot County's tough smoking law was passed to protect people from fumes streaming off other people's cigarettes. But what is the hazard? Is it death, illness or mere annoyance?Ask the Environmental Protection Agency or the American Heart Association and you will hear that secondhand smoke not only makes people ill, but causes thousands of fatal lung cancers and heart attacks that wouldn't have occurred in a smoke-free environment.Ask the tobacco industry, and you will hear that the EPA has engaged in pseudo-science, skewing its research to reach the politically correct conclusion that cigarette smoke is lethal even for nonsmokers.

WASHINGTON -- The tobacco industry began what is expected to be a vigorous counterattack against the government assault on smoking yesterday as R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. launched a public relations campaign to "bring some balance to the debate surrounding secondhand smoke and other issues surrounding cigarettes."In full-page advertisements in major U.S. newspapers, the company claimed that non-smokers are routinely exposed to "very little" secondhand smoke.The ads claimed that, in a month, a non-smoker living with a smoker would be exposed to environmental smoke that was, on average, the equivalent of smoking 1 1/2 cigarettes.

Smoking will be banned inside Harborplace and The Gallery beginning April 1, the first malls in Baltimore City to impose a nonsmoking policy, the malls' manager said."

FREDERICK -- Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, former secretary of health and human services, endorsed yesterday a proposal by Maryland officials to ban smoking in the workplace."

Lloyd Edwards is not a smoker, but he works around smokers almost constantly at the Phoenix Emporium in Historic Ellicott City. The bartender said he knows secondhand smoke is unhealthy for him but that he isn't worried."

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency announced guidelines yesterday on smoking in public buildings to help curb illness from secondhand tobacco smoke.The EPA asked all companies and agencies operating public buildings to either ban smoking or use ventilation to ensure that people are protected from secondhand smoke.The guidelines are voluntary, reinforcing the the EPA's stand, announced in January, in which it declared that secondhand smoke causes cancer and respiratory disease and should be regulated.

Howard County Del. Virginia Thomas seems certain she can persuade the 1994 General Assembly to pass a statewide ban on smoking in public places.While we don't share her optimism, we commend her for her persistent fight against the deadly effects of second-hand smoke.How deadly? A report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that "secondary" tobacco fumes annually cause 3,000 lung cancer deaths among non-smokers and up to 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia in children.Credit Ms. Thomas also for the way she handled a meeting last week at which 19 business leaders and health professionals discussed the ban idea.