| Smoking by all means is hazardous to the health. In last | | | | smoke in children who stay in apartments or houses |
| few years, there had been much discussion on the | | | | situated in a crop-pattern like those of refugee camps. |
| hazards of passive smoking, whereby the children or | | | | Though the history may not reveal any particular |
| adults staying with smokers were also found at | | | | pattern of nearby incidence of smoking around the |
| high-risk of cancer due to inhaling the smoke. Here is a | | | | child, we have presumed that the smoking in the |
| discussion on observations at our asthma clinic about | | | | vicinity can pollute the air and the micro-particles can |
| the incidence of asthmatic exacerbation in children | | | | remain suspended in that air for longer time even days |
| who though not directly exposed to smokers showing | | | | after the smoking has occurred. |
| the similar affection, just due to staying in the same | | | | Our theory has been supported by the research from |
| apartment. | | | | the University of Rochester Medical Center who have |
| At our asthma clinic, we always find children suffering | | | | reported that the housing type can be considered as a |
| with asthma, who give a history of having a smoker in | | | | potential contributor to children's exposure to cigarette |
| their family. Children who play at the park where many | | | | smoke. The blood levels of cotinine found in the blood |
| people smoke in the evening also show severe | | | | of such children proves this assumption. This also |
| asthmatic exacerbation. This has been attributed as | | | | shows that the smoke or micro-particles can spread |
| 'passive smoking' where in children inhale the air | | | | through ventilation pipes used in apartments and the |
| polluted by a smoker. This is more common when you | | | | child may not need to get exposed to the smoker |
| sit near or stay in a house of a smoker. It is also | | | | directly. |
| observed that this kind of passive smoking affects our | | | | Many parents are trying to limit their children's tobacco |
| body tissues as deeply as smoking affects a smoker's | | | | smoke exposure by not allowing smoking in their |
| organs. Thus it has always been kept on high alert. | | | | apartments, but they say they can smell tobacco |
| There have always been measures to avoid passive | | | | smoke coming from other apartments or from |
| smoking, such as having smoking and non-smoking | | | | common areas. In spite of that, if we consider our |
| sections in the public places like restaurants or gardens. | | | | assumptions and the observations of such studies to |
| In spite of that, the statistics or the incidence of children | | | | the general social arrangements, especially of creating |
| affected due to passive smoking has remained not | | | | smoking and non-smoking demarcation in the public |
| much altered. In one of the monthly meetings to | | | | places like restaurants and movie-theatres, it seems |
| discuss various issues faced in the clinic, we had | | | | the arrangements are not enough to avoid the |
| proposed this theory of micro-exposure to tobacco | | | | exposure to the cigarette-smoke pollutants. |