Stefania Bianchi
BRUSSELS, Mar 21 2006 (IPS) – More than 79,000 adults die each year as a result of passive smoking in the European Union, according to a new report from leading anti-smoking groups.
The report Lifting the smokescreen: 10 reasons for a smoke-free Europe launched by members of the European Parliament Tuesday (Mar. 21) says for every eight people dying from smoking each year in the EU, another person dies as a result of inhaling second-hand smoke.
The study was published by the Smoke Free Partnership, a new partnership between the European Respiratory Society (ERS), Cancer Research UK and the Institut National du Cancer in France (INC), with the support of the European Heart Network.
The partnership aims to promote tobacco control advocacy and policy research at EU and national levels in collaboration with other EU health organisations and EU tobacco control networks.
The study provides the first EU figures on deaths from passive smoking and aims to help European and national politicians and policymakers speed up legislative plans and enforcement of smoke-free laws across the bloc.
The report shows deaths due to passive smoking in all workplaces in the EU, with workers in restaurants, bars, pubs and nightclubs amongst the most vulnerable. In the hospitality industry, 325 people die each year as a result of passive smoking.
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In other words, every day of the working week in the EU hospitality industry, one employee dies as a result of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, the report says.
Germany has the most deaths at 15,609, but the report also shows that Hungary and Poland both have high rates given the size of their populations (3,940 and 8,720 respectively).
Tobacco is the first, second or third biggest risk factor for death in every EU country. In 2000, some 656,000 deaths out of a total of 4.5 million in the now 25 EU countries were due to smoking, according to a report published by the European Commission, the EU executive in 2004.
Tobacco is the most important source of indoor contaminants in environments where smoking occurs. Smoke from cigarettes contains over 4,000 chemicals, including many air pollutants and wastes that are regulated as hazardous . More than 50 of these chemicals are known to be carcinogens and more than 100 are chemical poisons.
The risks from inhaling second-hand tobacco smoke are irrefutable after 20 years of accumulated medical evidence.
The report also provides evidence that measures to prevent passive smoking are both feasible and popular and calls for legislation to prevent smoking in all enclosed public areas and workplaces, including bars and restaurants.
Since January 2004, Ireland, Norway, Italy, Malta and Sweden have all gone smoke-free in public places. So has Scotland within Britain, with similar plans also in the pipeline for the rest of the country. The Smoke Free Partnership wants to hasten the trend.
In Ireland, where the policy was introduced in March 2004, 96 percent of people believe that the law has been successful, and even 80 percent of smokers believe it was a good idea.
Prof Konrad Jamrozik from the University of Queensland, Australia, says estimates of the deaths caused by passive smoking are conservative.
They include deaths from heart disease, strokes, lung cancer and some respiratory disease caused by passive smoking but they omit deaths in childhood due to this cause and deaths in adults due to other conditions related to smoking, such as pneumonia, he told IPS Tuesday (Mar. 21).
Prof John Britton, chair of the tobacco control committee of the ERS and spokesperson for the Smoke Free Partnership welcomed moves by some EU countries to ban smoking in public areas, and is calling for the ban to be extended throughout the bloc.
Passive smoking causes death and disease, particularly in hospitality workers. There is no excuse for not introducing a total ban on smoking in enclosed public places as soon as possible. The successes in Ireland, Norway and Italy show it can be done easily and effectively, he told IPS.
Britton says the EU institutions can play a lead role in reducing the number of deaths from passive smoking by implementing measures to reduce the prevalence of smoking.
These could include higher tax, better cessation services, safer alternatives to cigarettes, health promotion campaigns to promote cessation and making homes smoke free, he said.
The Smoke Free Partnership also says when smoke-free legislation is introduced, health and life expectancy are not the only things that improve.
Companies find that days lost to ill health fall. Contrary to reports that these policies would ruin the hospitality business, jobs in bars and restaurants in New York increased by 10,600 in the year after the 2003 Smoke-Free Air Act came into effect, the report says.
Last year, the Swedish Minister of Health, Morgan Johansson said that in five years time, a majority of EU countries would have smoke free laws. We hope it can happen even sooner, Fiona Godfrey, EU policy advisor at the ERS told IPS.