A 17-year study of nearly 8,000 people has shown that people living with regular smokers are more than twice as likely to die of lung cancer than those living with non-smokers. And just recently, Malcolm Law, one of the authors of a definitive analysis on passive smoking, revealed that for the last 10 years, studies have clearly shown that those who live with smokers face a higher risk of developing lung cancer by 25 percent.

Already, thousands of retail businesses and shopping malls across the United States and all over the world are voluntarily banning smoking within its premises, to help eliminate what they call the ?environmental hazard? faced by their non-smoking employees and millions of customers.

Indeed, smoking is now considered in many countries as socially unacceptable because it affects not only the smokers but also the non-smokers inhaling the smoky air. In the face of such findings, the World Health Organization passed a resolution which specified that ?passive smoking violates the right to health of non-smokers who must be protected against this noxious form of environmental pollution.?

This, certainly, is no laughing matter and should merit the attention of President Aquino and the authorities in the health department, so they could implement measures to protect the public from the deleterious effects of passive smoking.

It is our fervent hope that our immensely popular President would realize that he owes it to the Filipino people to stay fit and healthy for the next six years. He should remember that each time he smokes, he?s violating the right to health of non-smokers like us.

?FLORIÑO A. FRANCISCO, MD,
Nueva Ecija Doctors? Hospital,
Cabanatuan City