e mother. Infants that are born in a smoking environment weigh less and have a weaker chance of becoming a fully developed child. Secondhand smoke leads to blood clots and damages arterial linings which are the two most leading factors in the development of heart disease. The tobacco companies got scared of the effect that the secondhand smoke research can do to the cigarette makers. The tobacco companies started their own secret studies on how to fight the growing success of antismoking activists. They are trying to show the people that there is no definite evidence to prove that the secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer or any other diseases that the scientists accuse it of. The tobacco industry is trying to influence the science by commissioning a research from sympathetic scientists and sponsoring scientific meetings where they try to carefully bring out their point of view and publish the results in the medical literature. Only 4 percent of the articles that were published from the meetings that were sponsored by the tobacco industry said that the secondhand smoke was unhealthy. The debate on secondhand smoke has reached the boiling point. When different scientists are using different study designs and different researches and still come up with the same result, it is time to start paying more serious attention to secondhand smoke. When the human evidence is combined with the laboratory experiments showing that the secondhand smoke can cause cancer it is impossible to ignore it any longer. The nonsmokers should have the right to breathe smoke-free air. It is important to have restrictions on where people are allowed to smoke and in particular to keep the work place as a smoke-free environment. The declining rates of smoking show that people can actually quit. Everybody should make an effort to quit for the sake of the people they love....
