Strong evidence that tough smoking laws reduce heart attacks
'Secondhand smoke has immediate effects on blood and blood vessels in a way that increases the risk of triggering a heart attack'
There is strong and consistent evidence that exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart attacks and that smokefree workplace and public place laws cut heart attacks (and other diseases). The most recent evidence comes from a large study in Sao Paolo, Brazil, where heart attack deaths dropped by 12 percent following implementation of its smokefree law. Even so, we still hear people challenging the science. For example, a recent article by a onetime employee of the tobacco industry-supported Cato Institute and bartender, tries to use the natural variability in results in different studies to argue against this fact. This is the latest echo of more direct attacks that the tobacco companies have mounted since the 1970s, when the evidence that secondhand smoke caused disease started accumulating. For decades as the evidence that secondhand smoke kills became stronger and more consistent, the media continued to quote people with tobacco industry ties, which made the science appear increasi...
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