Parents abuse children by smoking, group says

Globe & Mail ^ | 2003-01-21 | ANDRé PICARD

[Lorenb420]

Exposing children to second-hand smoke is tantamount to child abuse, the Canadian Lung Association says.

In a controversial statement released yesterday to mark Non-Smoking Week, the venerable charitable organization called on parents to stop smoking in the home because they are endangering the health of their children.

"Children who are exposed to second-hand smoke are victims in their own homes -- the very environment that is supposed to be safe and protective," said Noel Kerin, an occupational and environmental medicine specialist and medical spokesman for the lung association.

"Second-hand smoke is damaging to a child's health and is tantamount to child abuse. The evidence is too compelling to present it in half measures or to worry about political correctness. We have a significant social and health problem that needs public attention and the associated pressure of public intolerance to correct it."

Dr. Kerin said that a child whose mother smokes half a pack of cigarettes daily has double the risk of developing asthma. A child who has asthma who lives in a home where someone smokes will have three times as many asthma attacks, which can require hospitalization and even cause death.

Exposure to tobacco smoke increases children's risk not only of asthma, but of respiratory tract infections, ear infections and sudden infant death syndrome. Children who live with smokers are also more likely to become regular smokers.

"An adult in that situation can choose not to be abused -- they can leave -- but a child cannot. These children have to be protected," Dr. Kerin said.

He refused to say, however, what sanctions should be applied to parents who smoke in the home, saying that is not the lung association's area of expertise.

Nico Trocmé, director of the Centre for Excellence for Child Welfare at the University of Toronto and one of Canada's foremost experts on child abuse, said there are "certainly some circumstances where smoking in the home could be considered to be child abuse" but, in general, child-welfare authorities would not view it in that way.

He cited the example of a parent who smoked a lot in front of an asthmatic child, triggering asthma attacks. "In that case, yes, I would say report it to child-welfare authorities," Dr. Trocmé said.

"That's abusive and state intervention is required. But between that and saying all smoking in the home where there is a child is abuse is quite a distance."

Peter Dudding, executive director of the Child Welfare League of Canada, agreed, saying: "Currently, smoking is not grounds that would warrant removal of a child from the home, but that's not to say it shouldn't be. There's a shifting level of knowledge and tolerance in our society about smoking."

He said he hoped the lung association's provocative stand would help get the health message out.

There are 2.4 million Canadian households with children under the age of 12. According to Health Canada's Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey, children in about 25 per cent of those homes are routinely exposed to second-hand smoke.

The lung association is not the first group to label smoking near children as a form of abuse.

In 1997, James Garbarino, an internationally recognized expert on child protection, caused a furor when he made a similar declaration. And in 2000, researchers at the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit declared that physicians have a duty to encourage parents to quit smoking and to report the abuse to child-welfare authorities if they do not.

[angkor]

Although it's probably not a great idea to smoke in a closed room (or car) with kids, I'd dare these blowhards to get their extremist rhetoric to be enshrined in law.

Any doctor who "reports" a smoker for per se child abuse should be sued for invasion of privacy and slander.

[Jaidyn]

There are 2.4 million Canadian households with children under the age of 12. According to Health Canada's Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey, children in about 25 per cent of those homes are routinely exposed to second-hand smoke
Does 25% of their children have lung cancer? If not, what's the point? I'm one of ten kids in a family of smokers. None of us have smoke-related illnesses. Offhand, I can't think of one person I personally know who was a smoker and who has died of lung cancer. Aside from dying of old age, most of the folks I was acquainted with died from work-related injuries or illness and/or accidents. I have friends suffering from other diseases but they are rare and hopefully their diseases are extinct soon.

[BraveMan]

More pearls of wisdom from the Nanny state . . .

[Sam Cree]

All these posts make it sound like Canada is turning into a regulay "people's republic."

[sneakypete]

Exposing children to second-hand smoke is tantamount to child abuse, the Canadian Lung Association says.

Ray Charles could see this puppy coming down the road 10 years ago.

[Publius6961]

Exposing children to second-hand smoke is tantamount to child abuse, the Canadian Lung Association says.

Yeah... I've been thinking about that.
It's probably what makes them gay too, and heaven knows how many other pathologies...

[valkyrieanne]

This is total BS. Anyone in their 40s or older most likely grew up in households *saturated* with cigarette smoke. Do *we* have greater incidence of lung disease or asthma? I think not.

[qam1]

Of course it's BS.

40 years ago when 75%+ of the population smoked asthma was almost unheard of, Today there are less smokers than ever before yet asthma levels are the highest ever.

No corrolation there

[Max McGarrity]

The KABC morning host (Ken Minyard?) this morning was on this kick and so enraged a friend of mine who heard it, she pulled over and called me on her cell phone to tell me about it. By the time I'd found the danged station and sat through half a dozen commercials, I missed it. Anyone else pick up on it? Was it as bad as she said?

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Max McGarrity]

Dr. Kerin said that a child whose mother smokes half a pack of cigarettes daily has double the risk of developing asthma.

But, but...this is the same group that says:

Asthma is not caused by smoking.
The reason asthma develops in one person and not another is not well known. Asthma tends to run in families, but not always.

2001 Canadian Lung Association

If people don't start confronting these jerks with the facts about their junk science, forcing them to back up what they say, we won't have anyone to blame but ourselves when "they" come for our children in the dead of night...

[Max McGarrity]

From the Washington Toxics Coalition - Toxics in the home: Protecting children:

Incidence of childhood cancer increased 1% per year between 1974 and 1991; incidence of childhood asthma increased 60% between 1980 and 1991; 29 of 38 types of birth defects increased between 1980 and 1991.

From Statistical Abstracts of the United States:

In 1967, 56.3% of males between ages 25-44 (most likely to have young children in the home), and 41.3% of females aged 25-44 smoked. In 1998, 29% of males in that age range and 25% of females smoked.

From the same chart: 66% of children 0-5 were treated for lower respiratory problems in 1967; 79.7% were treated in 1989; 72% of children 6-16 were treated in 1967; 90.6% were treated in 1989.

Asthma rates in the inner city are eight times what they are in suburbia; far more asthma and other respiratory illnesses occur along heavily used highways.

Like you, I grew up in a smoking family, as did my parents and their parents and on down the line, and not one of us has EVER had a "smoking-related" illness. But when crap like this is published, and the sheeple read or hear it, they believe it. So when our illustrious civil serpents get the slick, professional pr pieces from the antis that claim children are dropping like flies due to parental smoking, they'll pass a law and the sheeple will rejoice. We are way down that slippery slope and they are greasing the skids.

[SheLion]

I don't know how ANY of us made it this far in life. I really don't. I grew up in a smoking home. Most of my relatives smoked. I don't know......maybe the air was just "purer" back then. The anti's of today have polluted our air with lies and spin and downright BS! No wonder people are getting sick! SICK OF THE DO-GOODERS! ugh~

[Just another Joe]

The evidence is too compelling to present it in half measures or to worry about political correctness.

I sure would like to SEE all this evidence they keep talking about.

[Just another Joe]

"Currently, smoking is not grounds that would warrant removal of a child from the home, but that's not to say it shouldn't be.

It's coming. Just wait.
I'm glad I don't have any young ones about anymore.

[Max McGarrity]

Sick of do-gooders."

That's truer than most know, SheLion. Research shows that raising children in a "bubble" of cleanliness leads to more problems because their little bodies are not permitted to develop their own immunities, and more than half of the alleged "allergies and adverse reactions" to miniscule risks such as shs are purely psychosomatic. THAT's what they're doing to our children, and the sheeple mindlessly applaud.

[philman_36]

In a related story...EPA ADMINISTRATOR CHRISTIE WHITMAN UNVEILS CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM SECONDHAND SMOKE
The Canooks are a little slow in acting on this one.
Got to keep up with the Jones.
Puff

[philman_36]

I sure would like to SEE all this evidence they keep talking about.
Environmental Tobacco Smoke
The Environmental Protection Agency firmly maintains that the bulk of the scientific evidence demonstrates that secondhand smoke – environmental tobacco smoke, or "ETS" – causes lung cancer and other significant health threats to children and adults. EPA's report ("Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders," EPA/600/6-90/006F) was peer-reviewed by 18 eminent, independent scientists who unanimously endorsed the study's methodology and conclusions. Since EPA's 1993 report which estimated the risks posed by ETS, numerous independent health studies have presented an impressive accumulating body of evidence that confirms and strengthens the EPA findings. It is widely accepted in the scientific and public health communities that secondhand smoke poses significant health risks to children and adults. A U.S. District Court decision has vacated several chapters of the EPA document, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders," that served as the basis for EPA's classification of secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen and estimates that ETS causes 3,000 lung cancer deaths in non-smokers each year. The ruling was largely based on procedural grounds. EPA is appealing this decision. None of the findings concerning the serious respiratory health effects of secondhand smoke in children were challenged.
ABSTRACT:
In 1992, the EPA completed its risk assessment on The Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders and concluded that the widespread exposure to ETS in the United States presents a serious and substantial public health impact. More specifically, EPA concluded that ETS is a human lung carcinogen, responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in U.S. nonsmokers. Furthermore, infants and young children are especially sensitive to ETS. In children, ETS exposure is causally associated with: 1) an increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. (EPA estimates that 150,000 to 300,000 cases annually in infants and young children up to 18 months are attributable to ETS.), 2) an increased prevalence of fluid in the middle ear, symptoms of upper respiratory tract irritation, and small reductions in lung function, and 3) additional episodes and increased severity of symptoms in children with asthma. (EPA estimates that up to 1 million asthmatic children have their condition worsened by exposure to ETS.) ETS exposure may also be a risk factor for the development of new cases of asthma.
Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking (also known as Exposure to Secondhand Smoke or Environmental Tobacco Smoke - ETS)
Environmental Tobacco Smoke AHA
Lots of info on other studies there. Just too much to bother linking to.
Adobe online PDF converter

[Lizavetta]

When are they going to start prosecuting parents who send their children to schools day after day knowing they're going to get verbally and physically abused by their classmates? I would say the scars of bullying are much worse than alleged second-hand smoke damage.

What about prosecuting parents for subjecting their children to divorce? Kiddie beauty pageants? StageMomitis?

[philman_36]

Some more info...National Education Association Health Information Network
"All communities and persons across this Nation should live in a safe and healthful environment."
With these words, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12898 on February 11, 1994 to establish environmental justice as a national priority.
Snip...Environmental Tobacco Smoke. Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), or second-hand smoke, causes 3,000 lung-cancer deaths in non-smoking Americans each year (EPA, 1995). Nearly 9 out of 10 non-smoking Americans are exposed to ETS. Exposure to ETS is higher among children, African Americans, and males (Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey). A 1996 study by the American Lung Association (ALA) found that children exposed to ETS at home were 70% more likely to have wheezing with colds, 60% more likely to go to emergency rooms for wheezing, and 40% more likely to have persistent wheezing, compared with children in homes without ETS. Not surprisingly, the EPA estimates that each year, ETS exacerbates the asthma condition in 200,000 to 1 million asthmatic children, and may contribute to thousands of new childhood asthma cases.

I'd be remiss if I didn't offer the counter arguments so 'ereitis...Just too much to link seperately