Cars Can Be Smokier Than Bars

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You breathe in twice as much pollution in a closed car with a smoker as in the smokiest bar, a study has found. Even with the smoker's window rolled down, the level is about equal to a smoky bar, the study found. Instruments measured the amount of particulate in the air of a car while the front seat passenger smoked. Particulates are tiny particles that can enter the lungs. Researchers said smoking should be banned in cars with child passengers.

What Is the Doctor's Reaction?

What parent would expose their child to the cigarette smoke in a smoky bar?

None, I hope. Everyone knows that secondhand smoke is bad for children, and that putting them in the middle of a cloud of cigarette smoke is a very bad idea.

Well, it turns out that if you smoke in the car with your kids, the amount of smoke they inhale is the same as they'd inhale in that smoky bar -- and that's with a window down. Roll the windows up, and it's twice as bad as the smokiest bar you could find.

That's the message from researchers at the Wellington School of Medicine in a study published October 27.

This is important information, because many parents who smoke cigarettes think that if they roll the windows down, there's no harm in having a smoke on the road. They think that the smoke will go outside, and that air coming in the windows will clean out the air in the car. Unfortunately, that's not true.

Exposure to secondhand smoke is known to increase a child's risk of lung infections, ear infections and asthma. In children who already have asthma, cigarette smoke triggers attacks.

The American Lung association estimates that 150,000 to 300,000 cases of lung infections occur each year in children under 18 months who are exposed to secondhand smoke. These infections result in 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations -- and that's just the kids under 18 months!

Exposure to smoke also increases the risk that a baby will die of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), and increases the risk of cancer in everyone.

In a recent study published in the International Journal of Cancer, exposure to cigarette smoke in childhood increased the risk of bladder cancer later in life. With more and more children being exposed, who knows what health problems they will have as adults?

What Changes Can I Make Now?

If you smoke cigarettes, the very best thing you could do for your health and the health of those around you is quit. Cigarette smoking causes lung diseases, cardiovascular diseases, cancer and many other health problems. The sooner you quit, the sooner your risk goes down.

If you have children, this study further underlines the risks you cause for your child when you smoke. Blowing in the other direction, rolling the windows down or leaning out a house window are not effective in protecting your children from cancer and asthma and everything else cigarette smoke can do to them. If you want to protect them, you can't smoke anywhere near them.

Other studies have shown that even smoking far away from a child isn't enough. The dangerous chemicals from the smoke settle into clothing and furniture and can linger for months, going back into the air children breathe.

Quitting smoking can be very hard -- it's an addiction. Talk to your doctor about programs and medications that can help.

If you don't smoke, but people who have contact with your children do, talk to them. Tell them about the risk they are causing to your children. Encourage them to talk to their doctors.

Do everything you can to limit the time your child spends with smokers. The threat of not being able to see his grandchildren may be just the push Grandpa needs to quit.

What Can I Expect Looking to the Future?

The researchers are calling for laws in to ban smoking in cars when children are inside. Such laws already exist in , and , and many other states are considering them.

A June 2006 report by the surgeon general stated that there is no safe exposure to secondhand smoke. There will likely be more discussion of how we can limit everyone's exposure, either voluntarily or by law.

Health care professionals and community leaders will need to educate the public and help create and support smoking cessation programs.

It's crucial for our health as a society, not just now, but for the future -- our children's future.