Passive smoking linked to 22,000 cases of children’s asthma each year

PASSIVE smoking causes at least 22,000 new cases of asthma and wheezing in children every year, doctors in Britain said yesterday.

More than 20,000 chest infections, 120,000 bouts of middle ear disease and 200 cases of meningitis in youngsters are also thought to be linked to the effects of second-hand smoke, they said. Furthermore, 40 babies who die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) every year are thought to be linked to passive smoking – one in five of all SIDS deaths.

Passive smoking results in more than 300,000 GP consultations, 9,500 hospital admissions and costs the NHS about £23.3 million, the British-wide report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said.

Of this cost, £9.7m is due to doctors’ visits and asthma treatments, £13.6m is spent in hospital admissions and £4m on asthma drugs for children up to age 16.

Children are more susceptible to damage from passive smoking owing to their smaller lungs and under-developed immune systems.

This makes them more likely to pick up chest and ear infections triggered by passive smoking.

Some two million children live in a home with an adult who smokes and many more are exposed to second-hand smoke elsewhere, the study said.

Funded by Cancer Research UK and carried out by the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, partly the research found that children whose parents both smoked were almost nine times as likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke as those in non-smoking families. If the father smoked, exposure was around three times higher and more than six times higher if the mother smoked.

Children whose parents or brothers and sisters smoked were also 90% more likely to grow up to become smokers themselves.

Children in households where someone smokes on most days are exposed to about seven times more smoke than those who live in smoke-free homes.

Experts behind the report made a series of recommendations, including taking steps to cut the number of adults who smoke, particularly young adults.

They called for increases in the real price of tobacco, measures to tackle tobacco smuggling and illegal trading, and investment inmedia campaigns targeted at young people.

Cigarettes should also be taken off display in shops while packaging should be made generic and standardised, they said.

Other measures include banning smoking in cars, cutting down exposure to images of people smoking in the media, and stiff penalties for those who sell cigarettes to under-age youngsters.

Professor John Britton, chairman of the RCP’s tobacco advisory group, said: “This report isn’t just about protecting children from passive smoking, it’s about taking smoking completely out of children’s lives.”

Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), which is supporting the report, said: “The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has recently led on the call to ban smoking in cars with children travelling in them.”