Smokers Go Home This post from Seeing the Forest highlights a news story that is especially applicable to Toledo, where a smoking ban in restaurants and bars was recently enacted and where the local Republican Party tried (and failed in a manner reminiscent of an unintentional belly-flop into the pool) to make an issue in the city council primaries.
A study earlier this year found that bans on smoking in public have dramatic health benefits.
Local laws banning smoking in workplaces and public areas can greatly reduce the number of heart attacks that occur in the community, a study has demonstrated for the first time.
Investigators in Helena, Montana, compared heart-attack rates over the four years before and six months after a local Clean Indoor Air ordinance took effect in June, 2002.
"We took advantage of the fact that there is single hospital in the region that treats heart-attack patients,[per thou] said Dr. Richard P. Sargent, St. Peter[base ']s Community Hospital, Helena, Mont.. The city, with a population of about 66,000, is about 60 miles from the closest other hospital.
"The passage of a local indoor smoke-free-air ordinance was associated with a significant 45% reduction in heart attack incidence for people living in the Helena region as compared to the surrounding areas,[per thou] said Dr. Sargent. [base "]The effect of eliminating second-hand smoke exposure on admissions for myocardial infarction was immediate and sustained.[per thou]
The discovery, said Dr. Sargent, adds to established evidence that 1) long-term second-hand exposure to cigarette smoke can increase the risk of heart disease and 2) short-term exposure causes changes in the blood that can make heart attacks more likely. He is slated to present the study[base ']s results here at 8:30 a.m., Tuesday, April 1, at the American College of Cardiology 52nd Annual Scientific Session.
Sadly, the results of the experiment were confirmed almost immediately:
The Montana State Legislature, under pressure from the Montana Tavern Association and tobacco lobbyists, rescinded the ban in December. The result: heart-attack rates bounced back up almost as quickly as they dropped.
The bottom line of Helena's plummeting, then soaring, heart attack rate is painfully obvious: secondhand smoke kills. Only 30 minutes of exposure to it causes platelets in the bloodstream to become stickier. When that happens, blood clots form more easily, which can block arteries and cause heart attacks.
A quick web search showed that this study has been criticized by pro-smoking forces. To do so, they misrepresent the nature of the study. It did not look at cancer rates, or heart disease, or even deaths, but only heart attacks.
The study also confirmed earlier observations, and suggested an explanation for those observations:
The study suggests that although second-hand smoke delivers only a small dose of harmful chemicals, it appears to have a very heavy impact on health. This paradox has puzzled scientists before, says Robert West, an expert on smoking cessation at St George's Medical School, London, "but there are now plausible mechanisms for this".
The risk of lung cancer rises steadily with the amount of tobacco a person smokes, he notes, but the risk of heart attack shows a non-linear relationship. Recent studies have shown "there is an immediate and acute effect of passive smoke exposure as a particulate pollutant," West told New Scientist.
The mechanism for this effect is likely to be that the inhaled smoke stimulates the immediate production of macrophages - white blood cells that "clean up the system".
But these break down and lead to the production of blood clotting agents. "So if someone is teetering on the brink of a heart attack, this clotting is likely to tip them over," says West.
Guess what smokers: there is no God-given right to inflict heart attacks on the poor sods around you. You had a chance to real the law and you failed. You had a chance to vote for candidates who support weakening the ban, and most of you didn't. That's democracy.
6:12:47 PM 
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