Doctors believe that secondhand smoke may cause lung cancer in people who do not smoke. Nonsmokers often breathe in the smoke from other people’s cigarettes. This is secondhand smoke. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that about fifty-three thousand people die in America each year as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke.
The smoke that comes from a lit cigarette contains many different poisonous chemicals. In the past, scientists did not think these chemicals harm a nonsmoker’s health. Recently, though, scientists expressed their opinion after they studied a large group of nonsmokers. They discovered that even nonsmokers had unhealthy amounts of these toxic chemicals in their bodies. As a matter of fact, almost all of us breathe tobacco smoke at times, whether we realize it or not. For example, we cannot avoid secondhand smoke in restaurants, hotels, and other public places. Even though many public places have nonsmoking areas, smoke flows in from the areas where smoking is permitted.
It is even harder for children to avoid secondhand smoke. In America, nine million children under the age of five live in homes with at least one smoker. Research shows that these children are sick more often than the children who live in homes where no one smokes. The damaging effects of secondhand smoke on children also continue as they grow up. The children of smokers are more than twice as likely to develop lung cancer when they are adults as the children of nonsmokers. The risk is even higher for the children who live in homes where both parents smoke.
1. It can be inferred that about fifty-three thousand people die in America .
2. Non-smokers get harmed by smokers .
3. Which of the following is NOT true?
4. Which of the following is NOT listed as a negative effect imposed by secondhand smoking on children?
5. Which group of children suffer from secondhand smoking to the greater extent?
