Thirty a day die from passive smoking

Passive smoking kills 30 people a day, research has shown.

New calculations show people exposed to second-hand smoke at home or working in pubs, bars and nightclubs are most at risk.

The news will pile pressure on Health Secretary John Reid, who was criticised for failing to ban smoking in all public places in the recent public health White Paper. The research published online by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) today shows:

James Johnson, chairman of the British Medical Association and a vascular surgeon, said: "With the latest figures in the BMJ revealing that 30 non-smokers die every day in the UK from second-hand smoke, I don't know how John Reid can continue to serve

the public half-measures on health. We need a total ban and we need it now."

Professor Konrad Jamrozik of the University of Queensland used British databases to calculate the number of deaths due to passive smoking at home and at work in employees of the hospitality industry.

He suggests that exposure at work might contribute up to one fifth of all deaths from passive smoking in the general population aged 20-64, and up to half of such deaths among employees of the hospitality industry.

Professor Jamrozik said: "Adoption of smoke-free policies in all workplaces and reductions in the general prevalenceof active smoking would lead to substantial reductions in these avoidable deaths.

"Smoke-free policies in all UK workplaces might prevent several hundred premature deaths each year, while the reduction of active smoking to that already achieved in other parts of the English-speaking world might avoid several thousand more."

Ian Willmore, of campaign charity ASH, said this research proves the need for a ban on smoking in all public places. "This important new study suggests that more than twice as many premature deaths are caused each year by second-hand smoke in the workplace as by all industrial injuries and accidents." He added that although various restrictions on smoking were included in the White Paper, it does not go far enough. "The White Paper on Public Health was a big step in the right direction but still proposed absurd exemptions for many pubs and private clubs.

"But Professor Jamrozik is warning that workers in the hospitality trade are among those at greatest risk. His figures suggest that premature deaths among hospitality trade employees are running at the rate of one a week.

"That's a very high price to pay for allowing a few smokers to continue to indulge their dangerous habit indoors."