[Intl-tobacco] WHO to urge smoking bans worldwide

[robert weissman]

Smoking bans may have no borders
Posted 7/12/2006 11:13 PM ET
By John Ritter, USA TODAY

The World Health Organization plans to urge smoking bans worldwide based
on a landmark California study that was the first to add breast cancer
to a list of diseases caused by secondhand tobacco smoke.

The WHO will announce today at the 13th World Conference on Tobacco or
Health in Washington that the study by California's Environmental
Protection Agency (CalEPA) will be the scientific basis for
recommendations due in September.

"It contains the most updated research," says Yumiko Mochizuki, director
of the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative. The CalEPA report and the WHO
policy will be published together, Mochizuki said.

The WHO will push for regulations that would make 100% of the world's
workplaces and public spaces smoke-free. Only a few countries, including
Ireland, have done so.

The CalEPA report found that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer, heart
disease, adult asthma, premature birth and sudden infant death syndrome.
It also determined that exposure causes an average 68% increase in
breast cancer risk for women under 50 and that some women who had not
reached menopause have as much as a 120% risk.

A U.S. Surgeon General's report released June 27 said secondhand smoke
causes heart disease, lung cancer and other illnesses but found that
evidence only suggested a link to breast cancer, which kills 40,000
women a year in the USA.

In January, the CalEPA report led the state to declare secondhand smoke
a "toxic air contaminant," a legal designation that allows regulators to
enact further restrictions on exposure. California already has the
nation's toughest anti-smoking laws, including bans on lighting up in
bars, restaurants, workplaces and a growing number of beaches and other
outdoor places.

As for the connection with breast cancer, the surgeon general's report
"is not saying there's no risk. It's saying there could be a risk," says
Terry Pechacek of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's
office of smoking and health.

Katharine Hammond, a member of a scientific review panel that evaluated
the CalEPA report, was also an author on the surgeon general's report.
She says they're 95% in agreement. "The surgeon general is only off by a
shade on breast cancer," she says. "But it's a very important shade."