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Tobacco and Your Health
How important is tobacco to your country's health?
Tobacco use can kill up to half of all the people who use it, and half in middle age. This is a serious problem for any country, especially when there are many other health problems.
Who can be hurt by tobacco?
Tobacco can kill the people who use it. It can also hurt the people who breathe in the smoke from other people's smoking.
How does smoking kill?
Tobacco smoke contains more than 4000 chemicals. Many of them are harmful and can cause cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory damage, and other problems. Tobacco that is chewed or sniffed also contains disease-causing components.
How dangerous is it to start smoking?
Tobacco is addictive, which means that it is difficult to stop using it, even when one wants to stop. So it is very dangerous to start smoking.
Why people use tobacco?
People use tobacco for many reasons. It can pleasurable, and help people to feel different. Tobacco transnationals use deception and propaganda to make people want to begin to smoke in spite of the danger.
What can you do?
You can act to help people to stop smoking, to help people to remain non-smokers, to join together with others to change social attitudes and to press for tobacco control laws.
Effects of Secondhand Smoke
Estimated Annual Deaths and Illness Among Smokers
Illness/ disease
Development defects |
Number of people or cases
|
Number of people or cases
|
|
In the US |
In the US |
Low birth weigh (cases) |
9,700 - 18,600 |
100 - ,2200 |
Sudden death |
1,900 - 27,000 |
120 |
Respiratory effects in children |
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|
- middle ear infection (physician Office visits) |
700,000 - 1.6 million |
78,600 - 188,700 |
- Asthma exacerbation (children) |
400,000 - 1.0 million |
48,000 - 120,000 |
- Bronchitis or pneumonia in infant and toddlers (18 months and younger) |
150,000 - 300,000 cases |
18,000 - 36,000 cases |
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7,500 - 15,000 hospitalisations |
900 - 1,800 hospitalisations |
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135- 212 deaths |
16 - 25 deaths |
Lung cancer |
3000 deaths |
360 deaths |
Heart attacks and strokes |
35,000 - 62,000 deaths |
4,200 - 7,440 deaths |
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