To the editor:

Points to ponder:

World Health Organization: “There is no safe level for exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS),” states the second edition of the WHO Air Quality Guidelines. Research summarized in the WHO guidelines clearly shows that chronic exposure to ETS “significantly increases health risks and premature deaths in nonsmokers. We are sending a message to all people who can influence health policy at the government, community, and institutional levels to enact regulations that help clear the air for nonsmokers.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: The CDC is now warning people at risk of heart disease to avoid all buildings and gathering places that allow indoor smoking. (“People at risk” would include anyone with hypertension, increased cholesterol, previous heart attack, and/or diabetes). The CDC disclosed its new advisory in the British Medical Journal on April 24. The agency said that as little as 30 minutes of exposure can have a serious effect, and wrote that “research underscores evidence that secondhand smoke rapidly increases the tendency of blood to clot, which can restrict flow to the heart,” and “strengthens the growing body of research pointing to potentially fast and acute reactions to secondhand smoke.”

Hippocrates: “The function of protecting and developing health must rank even above that of restoring it when it is impaired.”

WHO, CDC and Hippocrates would encourage the city commissioners to proceed with enactment of a smoking ban in Lawrence.

Dr. Lida Osbern,

Lawrence