SmokeFree Liverpool welcomes new evidence on second-hand smoking

April 6, 2004 - PRESS RELEASE

SmokeFree Liverpool welcomes new evidence on second-hand smoking

The organisers of the campaign to make Liverpool smokefree today welcomed new evidence that stopping smoking in public places reduces heart attacks.

A six-month ban on smoking in public places in the US town of Helena in Montana led to a 40% fall in heart attack cases admitted to the only local hospital, according to a study in the online version of the British Medical Journal.

Dr Paula Grey, Director of Public Health for Central Liverpool PCT and a member of Smokefree Liverpool, said: "This study provides dramatic evidence that restricting smoking in public places can have significant benefits.

"If these kinds of results could be repeated in Liverpool, it would have an enormous impact on local health services.

"Studies like these simply reinforce the arguments underlying the SmokeFree Liverpool campaign."

SmokeFree Liverpool aims to persuade individuals and businesses to make workplaces and public places across the city smokefree, by 2008.

In the same BMJ journal, New Zealand researchers say that adults who have never smoked but live with smokers have a 15 per cent higher risk of death within three years than those living in a smokefree household. The estimate is based on mortality figures using census data.

Vivian Nathanson, the head of research and ethics at the British Medical Association, said the two articles confirmed that passive smoking was "a very real risk".

"The case for a new law to end smoking in the workplace and in enclosed public places is now overwhelming."

For further information, please contact Roger Kenyon at Kenyon Fraser on 0151 706 9932.