Posted on 07/05/2017 8:13:16 AM PDT by MissEdie
Have any Freepers ever looked into the side effects of second hand smoke on the children of smokers?? I wanted to ask ya'll this because of a conversation I had earlier this morning. I was in a doctor's office talking to the receptionist about her 95 year old mom who is in bad shape and we got onto the topic of my own mother, who died at the age of 57 over 20 years ago from smoking related cancer. The lady asked me if I had ever looked into the effects second hand smoke had on kids in the home of a smoker. I looked over at my 8 year old and wondered if my mother's nasty habit was going to take me from my daughter and leave her like I am, trying to raise a beautiful child with no guidance.
I think a lot of it depends upon the person(s) in question. My dad smoked until he was 50. Neither he nor I have shown any signs of lung cancer from it, and he quit 35 years ago.
It’s probably not an issue. I am the child of two smokers and smoked for 10 years myself. My lungs are perfectly healthy now.
Second-hand smoke is really just “smelling smoke”. Smoke inhalation to the point of a health issue requires a large amount.
Besides, what can you do about it now?
Um, the receptionist? Hardly an authoritative source. They may become superficially knowledgeable after working in a medical office for some time but they aren’t doctors either.
Recent studies have debunked the secondhand smoke theory via empirical studies.
My own view is that considering most fire victims die of smoke inhalation so involuntarily inhaling smoke is hardly a healthy practice but the medical community is largely undecided on the statistical conclusions and, as usual, a political agenda is the main driver of opinion.
Yeah, I grew up with second-hand smoke all the time, my dad smoking a pipe and my mom smoking cigarettes. No prob, Bob. To me all this stuff is a bunch of b/s. More excuses for unjust government coercion.
Aside from the esthetics of the problem, I think they have discovered that there isn’t any danger. Just be sure to inform you children that smoking is destructive to the smoker, expensive, and is banned in most public places.
A lot of second-hand smoke studies are completely overblown and probably financed by lawyers in order to sue the tobacco companies. I wouldn’t be too concerned.
Although many conservatives say it doesn’t matter, always seemed logical to me that breathing in smoke isn’t healthy. Biggest effect of two parents smoking on me was I don’t smoke, for which I’m grateful. No health effects yet except aging.
Here are my observations from 63 years. I have seen men and women smokers die from unrelated accidents or other reasons well into their eighties or nineties. I have seen lots more smokers die from cancer or smoking related disease in their forties or fifties. I think that nicotine is like a key that fits into a cancer lock. If you have the lock you will get cancer. If you don’t, you won’t. If you have lots of little locks then second hand smoke may be enough to turn on the cancer.
Just eat healthy, exercise and keep your mind open to the possibility that the spot, lump, or bowel bleeding could be cancer and get thee to a doctor to see. The sooner you know the better your chances.
You’re aging?
That could be a real problem.
Whatever you decide, remember that just living your life causes death.
The dangers of second hand smoke are highly exaggerated, if they exist at all. More Left wing hysteria...
I find that “settled science” is anything but! Every case is different, mainly due to other environmental circumstances.
I suppose if you lived in a hermetically sealed house where the cigarette smoke was the only environmental contaminant, then you might have a case here.
If, however, you live near a refinery, or right by a major highway, it would be hard to pinpoint any respiratory problems (COPD, lung cancer, etc.) on second-hand smoke in the house. Or the chemicals from the refinery, or the exhaust from the cars. Heck, just living in the normal world, you have all these contaminants bombarding you.
Then there is the genetic element. I have an uncle who has been smoking cigars and pipes for 70 years with no major effects. On the other hand, we had a neighbor who never smoked and worked for the CDC so most of her work environment was fairly sterile. When she was about 40, she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and was gone within a couple months.
My advise to you is not to get jazzed about the whole thing. Enjoy your daughter as much as you can for as long as you can. My guess is that you’ll be helping her care for your grandchildren soon enough!
My father was smoking 3 packs a day when he married my mother who had never smoked in 1939..(I don’t know if these were 10 or 20 to a pack)
in 1941 my sister the oldest one of their children was born...
MY father announced that smoke would hurt the new baby and he stopped cold turkey and never ever smoked again...
as teenagers he warned us not to smoke and told me that he better not ever catch me smoking...
how did a man who had to drop out of school to work and support his mother and younger siblings at age 13 when his father died ever get so smart ???
this was 1941...
My father died in 1992 age 85...a few weeks after digging the soil and planting the seeds for his usual annual vegetable garden ...
the sister is now 76...and healthy...
IMO it’s been way overstated. Unless the home was like an airport smoking room that you can’t see through, it’s not likely to harm healthy kids. Different story if the kids already have lung problems/asthma, etc.
I do want to emphasize how much Dad smoked...
my mother’s sisters teased her that she was dating a chimney...
their husbands or boyfriends and Mom’s brothers smoked too back then but apparently Dad outdid them all...
then he stopped...suddenly...while their menfolk continued...
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