Secondhand smoke measurably harms children’s respiratory health and lung development

Evidence

Each day, over 3,000 American youngsters take up smoking. A third of them will die of smoking-related diseases. Lung cancer has now replaced breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths in women. There are other health costs as well. Cohen, Tyrell, Russell, Jarvis, and Smith (1993) have shown experimentally that smoking increases vulnerability to infections following exposure to viruses. Moreover, the toxic chemicals in secondhand smoke take a toll on the health of nonsmokers. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are especially vulnerable to respiratory illnesses and suffer stunted lung growth. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1626

Categorization

• SHARE: The statistic that over 3,000 American youth start smoking daily, a third of whom will die of it, could land with a public-health-minded acquaintance.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1626