Scientist: Passive Smoking Is Workplace Killer

Pressure mounted on Britain to take action on passive smoking with new research showing second-hand smoke kills about one worker each week in the hospitality industry.

Professor Konrad Jamrozik, of Imperial College in London, told a conference on environmental tobacco that second-hand smoking kills 49 employees in pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels each year and contributes to 700 deaths from lung cancer, heart disease and stroke across the total national work force. “Exposure in the hospitality industry at work outweighs the consequences of exposure of living with a smoker for those staff,” Jamrozik said in an interview. Other researchers have measured the levels of exposure to passive smoking but Jamrozik calculated how it would translate into avoidable deaths. His finding are based on the number of people working in the hospitality industry in Britain, their exposure to second-hand smoke and their risk of dying from it. Jamrozik said Monday the findings would apply to most countries in Europe because, to a greater or lesser extent, levels of smoking in the community are similar. “The momentum is building and the government is going to have to do something sooner, rather than later,” he added. Professor Carol Black, president of the Royal College of Physicians which sponsored the meeting, said the research is proof of the need for a ban on smoking in public places. “Environmental tobacco smoke in pubs, bars, restaurants and other public places is seriously damaging to the health of employees as well as the general public,” she said in a statement. “Making these places smoke-free not only protects vulnerable staff and the public, it will also help over 300,000 people in Britain to stop smoking completely,” she added. Ireland recently became the first country to introduce a national ban on smoking in public places. New York and parts of Australia have taken similar measures. Deborah Arnott, director of the anti-smoking group ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) described the figures as “truly shocking” and said they show the urgent need for a law to end smoking in the workplace. “The time for consultation has gone: the time for government action has arrived,” she said in a statement. (Source: Imperial College in London: Reuters Health News: Patricia Reaney: May 2004)