Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 2, 1994 TAG: 9402030022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But a greater threat to public health is the polluted air we breathe in our homes, offices, cars - any confined space - where Americans spend about 90 percent of their time.
You don't see dramatic news photos showing chemicals released by household products, or smoke from tobacco, hanging menacingly over our dining room tables. There are no government agencies monitoring the indoor levels of carcinogens and poisons that cause heart and respiratory diseases.
Yet, according to an analysis by the East-West Center, a think tank that as part of its mission promotes responsible global development, the air pollutants most hazardous to health in many developed countries come from motor vehicles, household products and - this should be a real surprise - cigarette smoke.
No one is arguing that cigarette smoke releases more harmful pollutants than industrial plants. It does, however, cause considerably more damage to people's health because it is released where people live - and work, and play, and you name it.
For example, benzene, a carcinogen, is released into the air in the United States mainly by automobiles and industrial smokestacks, and these sources are coming under tighter controls by the Clean Air Act. But people are exposed to benzene mainly by household products and - again, a shocking surprise - tobacco smoke.
The center's analysis shows that coal-fired power plants release about 500,000 tons of particulates, which contribute to respiratory diseases, each year. Smoking tobacco releases only around 20,000 tons a year. But passive smoke, the stuff just hanging in the air, exclusive of the smoke sucked down into people's lungs intentionally, produces about 50 times more exposure than power-plant pollution.
Just a 2 percent decrease in environmental smoke - either though less indoor smoking or better ventilation - would reduce people's exposure to particulates as much as if all of the coal-fired power plants in the United States were shut down. If that doesn't tell you something about our messed-up priorities and misguided risk assessments, nothing can. Shouldn't actual health risk be some sort of guide to society's response?
The center's analysis goes on to maintain that, per pound of particulates, passive tobacco smoke is more than a thousand times more dangerous than the smoke from the power plants, since the smoke from all those cigarettes is most often floating around rooms occupied by human beings, while the smoke from power plants is released high in the air, as far as possible from densely populated areas.
This is not to say the latter sort of pollution does no harm. But, while this type of pollution is recognized, regulated and monitored, at great expense to industry and government, comparatively little is done to control air pollution where it affects people the most, where people live. Clearly, anything that reduces people's exposure to cigarette smoke would benefit the public health and treasury.
Tobacco is by far the worst agent of disease, but it is not the only one. Having clothes dry-cleaned exposes people to tetrachloroethylene, a carcinogen. Air deodorizers release p-Dichlorobenzene, a probable carcinogen.
Environmental Protection Agency studies show that people's exposure to harmful pollutants is linked more to their indoor environments than to how close they live to a polluting manufacturing plant. All of which argues for some realistic assessment of how much indoor pollution is too much, and how too much can be avoided.
Meanwhile, if you smoke, quit. You are endangering not only your own life, but that of family members, particularly children. If you don't smoke, don't passively accept passive smoke. Insist on having plenty of breathing room, then visualize how much cleaner the air is - just as if all the coal-fired plants in the nation had shut down.
by CNB