1,200
people die each year as a result of colleagues smoking in the workplace
Three
people a day die in the UK because of passive smoking at work, according to
research carried out for the lobby group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
The
study concludes 1,200 people die each year as a result of passive workplace
smoking. It was published to coincide with a major conference on the issue in
April, organised by ASH, the TUC and the Chartered Institute of Environmental
Health.
At
the conference, delegates heard calls for the Government to implement a legally
binding code of practice.
Currently,
workplace smoking is only covered by a voluntary code, partly because the
Government bowed to lobbying last summer from the pub and restaurant trade.
Yet
pressure from the medical establishment has also been growing. The World Health
Organisation published research last July showing passive smoking does cause
lung cancer.
A
study by doctors in Scotland last autumn found that being exposed to smoke in
the workplace could be more damaging to lung function than exposure in the home
or public places.
A
further study, published in August by doctors in California, estimated that
making all workplaces non-smoking would reduce the number of adults who smoked
in the UK by 7.6 per cent.
The
latest research, A Killer on the Loose, found that 900 office workers, 165 bar
workers and 145 manufacturing workers die each year as a direct result of
breathing in other people’s smoke at work.
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There
were three times as many deaths a year from passive smoking at work as the
total number of deaths from workplace injuries, it concluded.
