Trouble For Big Tobacco: Second Hand Smoke Kills Over 600,000

Tobacco companies like Philip Morris (NYSE: PM) and Altria (NYSE: MO) have already been pushed into corners as more and more countries prohibit smoking indoors. The firms have been able to largely offset the drop in volume with higher retail prices.

The places that smoking is allows are likely to be curtailed again, even in nations like China where the use of tobacco is barely prohibited.

Medical journal Lancet has published a study says that 603,000 people died of second hand smoke in 2004–the most recent year for which data was available.

Worldwide, 40% of children, 33% of male non-smokers, and 35% of female non-smokers were exposed to second-hand smoke in 2004. This exposure was estimated to have caused 379 000 deaths from ischaemic heart disease, 165 000 from lower respiratory infections, 36 900 from asthma, and 21 400 from lung cancer. 603 000 deaths were attributable to second-hand smoke in 2004, which was about 1·0% of worldwide mortality. 47% of deaths from second-hand smoke occurred in women, 28% in children, and 26% in men.

The problem is worse when people who are disabled by the smoke is taken into account. That number is about 10.9 million, based on the 2004 information.

The challenge to tobacco company sales has largely shifted from the huge smoking death suits of the 1990s, most of which the firms won or, if lost, were able to keep liability claims low. The issue now is whether the backlash from the data revealed due to those suits–that tobacco use is even more dangerous than previously thought–may be the issue that deals the coup de grace to profits.

Douglas A. McIntyre