The New Straits Times, October 31, 1997
With the Government's recent tough stand on the need to further curb pollution, it is time to look deeper into some of its causes.
Based of the recent turn of events globally, one cannot help but single out smoking as an important source, not only in the interest of health but also increasingly of the environment.
This was duly recognised recently when the warning "to stop smoking at all times" was issued by the chairman of the National Disaster Management and Relief Committee (NDMRC) when the country was enveloped by the haze. Unfortunately the impact was very brief and in fact it has become a bit of a joke.
This was especially so when a Bahasa Malaysia daily (Utusan Malaysia, Sept 25) carried a report that the NDMRC chairman himself was spotted smoking in Sarawak (more specifically near the BIlik Gerakan Negara in Kuching) when he was allegedly due to make an important announcement on the haze situation in the State.
If this is so, then we urgently need to bring discussion on the issue to a more serious level. The need for this is compounded by many important studies done in relation to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), otherwise known as "passive smoke" or "second-hand smoke".
ETS is the complex mixture formed from the escaping smoke of a tobacco product, and smoke exhaled by the smoker, and is equally deadly as demonstrated by the three recent events cited below:
-
Two American airline flight attendants forced tobacco companies to cede new ground in a first-ever second-hand smoke lawsuit to come to trial. One of them had been diagnosed with lung cancer in 1989 and had blamed it on the cigarette smoke aboard the jets on which she worked. The US tobacco companies agreed to pay US$250 million (RM1.19 billion) in what they termed as "a triumph of common sense." This case can lead to the opening up of the floodgate of individual lawsuits on second-hand smoke, a ground that the tobacco companies had confidently defended against all along.
-
A study published in a recent issue of the scientific journal Circulation shows that ETS lowers "good" cholesterol in children, thereby increasing their risk of heart disease. The study, the first of its kind to look a blood fats and second-hand smoke in children (aged two to 18) with elevated cholesterol, found passive smoke lowers by 10 per cent the level of children's HDL (the good cholesterol) vital for protection against heart attacks. Twenty-seven per cent of the 103 children came from households of cigarette smokers.
-
The California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) review on ETS, the first comprehensive governmental analysis in the US since the 1986 Surgeon-General's Report, confirms that exposure to ETS has been linked to a variety of adverse health outcomes. It is causally associated with respiratory illnesses, including lung cancer, childhood asthma and lower respiratory tract infections.
More up-to-date scientific knowledge about ETS-related effects now implicate prenatal and postnatal manifestations of developmental toxicity, and adverse impacts on male and female reproduction.
There is also sufficient evidence of a causal relationship with fatal outcomes such as sudden infant death (SID) syndrome, whereas others like spontaneous abortion present suggestive evidence of association.
Thus, like the haze, ETS is an important source of toxic air pollution especially indoors, though it is not precluded outdoors in the vicinity of smokers. Thus despite the increasing number of restrictions on smoking, the laxity of control on ETS continues to pose a major concern to all including children.
In other word, ETS is as much an environmental problem as it is health. The chemicals present include irritants and systemic toxicants including hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide (the very compound the Government wants to reduce from industries).
Others are mutagens and carcinogens and reproductive toxicants nicotine, cadmium and carbon monoxide (an infamous environmental pollutant). To date, over 50 compounds in ETS have been identified as cancer0causeing agents and six as developmental or reproductive poisons.
Hence, it is plain to see that despite ferocious attempts by industry to negate these facts, they have fallen flat on their faces following the recent lawsuit. This "triumph of common sense" as admitted by the US tobacco industry, would now necessitate a drastic revision of strategies to curb smoking among the population, particularly children.
Given the fact the ETS is just as deadly, the ruling that allows certain flexibility to individuals to smoke in their private confines must be reviewed.
Particularly so when there are others (especially children) sharing the same "fatal" environment, as ETS can affect virtually everyone - be it in the immediate surrounding or interconnected to a larger ventilation system in the same building. In the same breath, the demarcation, often artificial, between "smoking" and "non-smoking" areas in closed areas like restaurants can no longer be regarded as sufficient to protect the health and rights of non-smokers. Eventually all in the same area will be inhaling ETS from a mayriad of sources.
Another situation that urgently needs to be relooked are the toilets in "no-smoking" buildings and shopping complexes. Invariably these toilets have been converted to smoking dens, leaving stale fumes to foul up the air even more. Members of the public forced to use such utilities have no choice but to contend with the suffocating environment.
Unless the "triumph of common sense" truly prevails, then the same spirit of "getting tough with environmental polluters" must apply to those responsible for ETS as well. There is now sufficient evidence to step up control over ETS and devise tough new measures in the interest of public and environmental health.
After all, according to the latest estimation by well-known Oxford epidemiologist Richard Peto, smoking will kill more than 100 million people over the next 20 years based on new data. This is many fold more than his previous estimate.
Thus the time to jest about smoking and ETS is over, we must now walk the talk, and "stop smoking at all times". Let common sense triumph.
