SMOKING!!
Humeur actuelle : fâché
Catégorie : Life
1. Tobacco kills about 45,000 Canadians a year. That's more than the total number of deaths from AIDS, car accidents, suicide, murder, fires and accidental poisonings combined.
2. There are over 4,000 dangerous chemicals in cigarettes, cigars and pipes smoke . Many of these chemicals are cancer-causing (carcinogen).
3. Smokers are at very high risk for many diseases:
* Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis) * Lung cancer * Cancer of the mouth, lip, throat and voice box
* Cancer of the pancreas
* Breast cancer
* Cervical cancer
* Stomach cancer
* Liver cancer
* Kidney cancer
* Bladder cancer
* Leukemia
* Coronary heart disease (e.g., heart attacks)
* Circulatory problems
* High blood pressure
* High cholesterol (LDL)
* Pneumonia
* Influenza (the "flu")
* The common cold
* Peptic ulcers
* Tooth decay (cavities)
* Gum disease
* Osteoporosis
* Sleep problems
* Cataracts
4.
Second-hand smoke causes most of the serious health listed above, and more. Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada estimate that every year, second-hand smoke kills from 1100 - 7800 Canadians
Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. Each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related.
* Between 1960 and 1990, deaths from lung cancer among women have increased by more than 400%—exceeding breast cancer deaths in the mid-1980s.2 The American Cancer Society estimated that in 1994, 64,300 women died from lung cancer and 44,300 died from breast cancer.3
* Men who smoke increase their risk of death from lung cancer by more than 22 times and from bronchitis and emphysema by nearly 10 times. Women who smoke increase their risk of dying from lung cancer by nearly 12 times and the risk of dying from bronchitis and emphysema by more than 10 times. Smoking triples the risk of dying from heart disease among middle-aged men and women.1
* Every year in the United States, premature deaths from smoking rob more than five million years from the potential lifespan of those who have died.1
* Annually, exposure to secondhand smoke (or environmental tobacco smoke) causes an estimated 3,000 deaths from lung cancer among American adults.4 Scientific studies also link secondhand smoke with heart disease.
Not only that,
Cigarette companies have hidden behind animal experiments for decades, trying to forget that everything we know about lung cancer and other smoking related illnesses has come from human epidemiological and clinical studies, not from animal experiments. Even though U.S. federal law does not require that tobacco products be tested on animals and even though smoking experiments on animals have been illegal in Britain since 1997, thousands of animals are still kept in restraints like smoke masks and body holders and subjected to horrific experiments every year.
At this very moment, pregnant monkeys at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center (ORPRC) are being kept in small, barren metal cages, their fetuses exposed to nicotine. Funded by the U.S. government, ORPRC experimenter Eliot Spindel acknowledges that "the deleterious effects of maternal smoking during pregnancy are all too well established." Yet his five year study, during which he will kill the baby monkeys and dissect their lungs, is funded (with tax money) through 2004.
This is one of countless examples of cruel and completely unnecessary experiments. Experimenters have taken large grants from cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris; from government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health; and even from the March of Dimes, to inject animals with nicotine, force them to inhale smoke and addict them to tobacco--a substance that they would never normally encounter or imbibe if left in peace.
Other examples of smoking experiments on animals include :
* Cutting holes in beagles' throats through which the dogs are forced to breathe concentrated cigarette smoke for a year.
* Inserting electrodes into dogs' penises to measure the effect of cigarette smoke on sexual performance.
* Strapping masks to the faces of rats and monkeys and permanently restraining them to force them to breathe cigarette smoke constantly.
* Forcing dogs to be on mechanical ventilators and chronically exposed to cigarette smoke.
* Restraining Rhesus monkeys in chairs with head devices and exposing them to nicotine and caffeine to determine how caffeine and nicotine affect breathing.
Experiment after experiment attempts to prove or, even more disconcertingly, disprove, in rats, mice, hamsters, lambs, dogs, cats, monkeys, and other animals, what is already known by the medical community to be true for humans, i.e. that:
* Smoking causes cancer of the lungs, larynx, tongue, salivary glands, mouth, pharynx, and esophagus
* Smoking contributes to cancer of the bladder, kidney, pancreas, stomach, and cervix
* Smoking contributes to cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease
* 50 - 55% of all strokes in the United States are directly attributable to cigarettes smoking.
* Smoking during pregnancy hurts babies.
* Smoking is the leading cause of pulmonary illness and death in the United States, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, influenza, and pneumonia
* Smoking lowers the general body resistance to disease
* Nicotine is addictive.
Yet the experiments go on. Millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of animal lives ... Imagine that money being spent on education, health services, or drug addiction treatment programs for pregnant women, instead of on cruel experiments on animals. Imagine the good that could be done!
I urge everyone to quit smoking. Save your lives and your lungs. It is simply not worth it.
