Passive
smoking will kill nearly two million over age 50 in China
Health
study projects death toll from chronic bronchitis and emphysema
BY MARLOWE HOOD
Agence
France- Press
PARIS — Chronic bronchitis and emphysema caused by passive
smoking will kill nearly two million people in China who today are
aged over 50, according to a study published today.
That toll more than doubles if one include deaths from lung cancer
and heart disease also inflicted by secondhand tobacco, the authors
said.
The study, led by K. K. Cheung and Peymane Adab of Birmingham University
in Britain, found that people who had never smoked were 48 per cent
more likely to suffer chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD)
if exposed to heavy tobacco smoke.
This was defined as 40 hours of exposure a week for more than five
years, in a workplace or home where colleagues or family members
smoked.
On present trends, “ of the 240 million people aged over 50
years alive today in China, high exposure to passive smoking would
result in about 1.9 million excess deaths,” the researchers
conclude grimly.
“ In China, we are looking at something like 100,000 people
dying a year from passive smoking, and about 45 per cent of that
will be from chronic lung disease,” Cheung told AFP in an
interview.
“ The rest are from coronary heart disease and lung cancer.”
The study, the largest of its kind ever undertaken in China, examined
15,379 non- smokers — almost 90 per cent of them women —
in the southern city of Guangzhou.
Citing a recent study by Beijing University, Cheung said passive
smoking costs China 29 billion yuan per year ($ 5 billion Cdn) in
medical costs.
Other factors aggravating lung disease include bad air pollution
and dangerous working conditions.
China has taken some measures to reduce tobacco consumption and
exposure to second- hand smoke.
Beijing announced on Tuesday its intention to ban all tobacco advertising
by the beginning of 2011, the latest possible date required under
the World Health Organization’s treaty on tobacco control.
The government has also banned smoking on public transport, and
has declared the Olympic Games in Beijing next summer “ smoke
free”.
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