BMJ  2003;326:1094 (17 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7398.1094-a

reviews

Website Of The Week

Passive smoking

While the connection between active smoking and disease has been widely documented, the jury is still out on the dangers of passive smoking, which is the subject of a paper and an editorial in this week's BMJ (p 1048 and p 1057).

The internet has much to say about the dangers of passive smoking. For a general review on the topic visit the website of Action on Smoking and Health (www.ash.org.uk/html/passive/html/passive.html), which presents a summary of the evidence. The site discusses links between passive smoking and pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases, and visitors can also find information about the impact of passive smoking on children and about local policies.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched a web page (www.cdc.gov/tobacco/ets.htm) full of information and links about environmental tobacco smoke. Here you can find information about the prevention of exposure and links to papers and reports.

The effects of passive smoking on children is a recurring concern (www.ash.org.uk/html/passive/html/who-ets.html). Those looking for brief information for their patients might want to recommend a short review from the American Academy of Paediatrics (www.medem.com/MedLB/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZ1UBHWQ7C&sub_cat=29).

The CDC can also help in giving advice: its page "Taking Action on Second Hand Smoking. An Online Toolkit" is a well done, interactive educational resource with much information and many links (www.cdc.gov/tobacco/ETS_Toolkit/index.htm).

---

¹ BMJ agonzales{at}bmj.com

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Related Article

Effect of passive smoking on health

George Davey Smith
BMJ 2003 326: 1048-1049. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]