Bans on public smoking reduce deaths among people exposed to secondhand smoke, study shows

doi:10.1136/bmj.b4290

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Bob Roehr

¹Washington, DC

Local laws that ban smoking in restaurants, offices, and other public places reduce the risk of heart attacks and heart disease in people exposed to secondhand smoke. The findings came in a report from the US Institute of Medicine that was released on 15 October.

“It’s clear that smoking bans work, [and they] reduce the risks of heart attack in non-smokers as well as smokers,” said Lynn Goldman, professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who led the study group that wrote the report.

The evidence from 11 studies in the United States, Canada, …