The American Heart Association has called for treating secondhand cigarette smoke as an environmental toxin that should be eliminated from public buildings, places of business and homes.
The association repeatedly has said tobacco smoke is dangerous to non-smokers, but there has been debate on that point."Although the existing epidemiological studies on cancer deaths associated with environmental tobacco smoke may be subject to questions . . . sufficient information has been published to implicate environmental tobacco smoke as a definite health hazard," according to a position paper issued by the association.
"I don't think in 1992 we have to debate whether ETS causes disease," Dr. Homayoun Kazemi, one of three authors of the AHA paper, said. "The evidence is there."
The group said it is contacting Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan and William K. Reilly, director of the Environmental Protection Agency, to urge them to toughen federal smoking standards and increase funding for education about the risks of smoking.
The paper, labeled as a "scientific statement," reveals no new findings about the effects of secondhand smoke.
Rather, it is a review of the medical literature, examining the research of others.
"The issue is pulling together the huge body of evidence into a single report," said Dr. W. Virgil Brown, president of the AHA. He and others said more than 50,000 studies have been done showing that exposure to secondary smoke increases the risk of heart disease and lung cancer.
"Although the number of cardiovascular deaths associated with environmental tobacco smoke cannot be predicted with absolute certainty, the available evidence indicates that environmental tobacco smoke increases the risk of heart disease," said the paper, which was released at the same time as a public opinion poll commissioned by the association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society.
The Heart Association said exposure to secondhand smoke should be eliminated.
"This requires that environmental tobacco smoke be treated as an environmental toxin, and ways to protect workers and the public from this health hazard should be developed," the paper said.
The poll, conducted by the Gallup Organization and similar to one done in 1989, found that more than nine in 10 people think secondhand smoke is harmful. The poll was conducted Feb. 14-27 and is based on a sample of 1,067 adults.
"It's time for policymakers at all levels, federal state and local, to catch up with public opinion and do more to protect the health of smokers and non-smokers alike through laws and regulations designed to limit exposure to tobacco smoke,"' said Dr. Lee B Reichman, president of the Lung Association.
The Tobacco Institute said the AHA had vastly overstated the number of studies linking secondary smoke with heart and lung disease.
"The weight of the scientific evidence continues to show that there is no link," said Tom Lauria, a Tobacco Institute spokesman. "There just isn't anything to support that."