EDITOR:Going the way of the spittoon

LETTER TO THE

June 21, 2007

Thomas L. Feia ("Brainwashed about secondhand smoke," Mailbag, Saturday) should pursue a little research before dismissing the damaging effects of secondhand smoke.

A quick trip to the website of the American Lung Assn. offers a detailed fact sheet on their findings, including:

Secondhand smoke … can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.

Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen).

Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.

Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,700 to 69,600 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.

The current Surgeon General's Report concluded that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Short exposures to secondhand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of heart attack.

As for Feia's assertion that people "walking past a cloud of smoke" experience nothing "other than an offensive smell," I would maintain the opinion that an offensive small is enough, in and of itself.

I have a friend who calls cigarette smoking "the spittoon of the 20th century." Public spaces in the 19th century typically had spittoons for patrons to expectorate in. Public places from the seediest taverns to the most luxurious hotels were furnished with spittoons. Luckily, society as a whole came around to the realization that, apart from the health risks involved, the spittoon was a dirty, offensive and repugnant component of public life.

Hopefully, cigarette smoking will soon go the way of the spittoon.

JEFF KURTTI

Glendale

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