Second hand Smoke Study Raises Ire

Study Shows No Association Between Passive Smoke and Health Risks

May 15, 2003 -- A controversial new study that questions the health risks of being exposed to secondhand smoke -- a factor often said to contribute to some 50,000 American deaths each year -- has outraged some health officials.

The new study, to be published in the May 17 issue of the British Medical Journal, shows no measurable rates of heart disease or lung cancer among nonsmokers who ever lived with smokers, and reports only a slight increased risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Many health agencies, including the U.S. Surgeon General's Office, have long said that secondhand smoke boosts the risk of heart disease by about 30% and lung cancer risk by 25% in nonsmokers.

"We found no measurable effect from being exposed to secondhand smoke and an increased risk of heart disease or lung cancer in nonsmokers -- not at any time or at any level," lead researcher James Enstrom, PhD, MPH, of the UCLA School of Public Health, tells WebMD. "The only thing we did find, which was not reported in the study, is that nonsmokers who live with smokers have a increased risk of widowhood because their smoking spouses do die prematurely."

For his finding, Enstrom used data from an American Cancer Society (ACS) study -- the Cancer Prevention Study that began in 1959 as one of the first major smoking studies. It involved some 1 million Americans across the country; Enstrom focused on some 36,000 nonsmoking Californians whose spouses had smoked, part of the 118,000 state residents in the trial. Although the study ended in 1972, Enstrom traced the cause of death of some 7,000 of those participants until 1998.

In fact, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 that 75% of studies done between 1980 and 1995 found no link between secondhand smoke and health problems. In that review, researchers examined 106 studies conducted in those 15 years; two in three indicated secondhand smoke does contribute to lung and heart disease.

By Sid  Kirchheimer
WebMD Medical News