Smokers with children should be aware of a new study linking both ear infections and asthma to secondhand smoke in the home. In their study, just published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, Dr. Summer S. Hawkins and Dr. Lisa Berkman of the Harvard Center for Population and Developmental Studies looked at data collected from over 90,000 parents of children up to 17 years of age in the 2007 National Survey of Children s Health. According to their findings, all children were more likely to have asthma if someone in their household used tobacco, and the older children in the study (aged 12-17) were nearly 70 percent more likely to have recurrent ear infections if there were smokers in their home.
While ACSH has long been skeptical of claims linking secondhand smoke to heart disease and cancer, says ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, these data linking it to increased rates of asthma and ear infection in children are quite credible and very consistent with what we have previously said.
ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross is most upset by the study s revelation that a startlingly low number of pediatricians actually inquire about secondhand smoke exposure when seeing young patients with ear infections and asthma. It s just an abomination for a doctor who sees a child with an ear infection or asthma not to ask about smoke in the home, he says. There really is no law that can be passed to improve this country s health care when physicians are neglecting measures as simple as asking parents about smoke in the home.