Moses Cone lights path to a healthy Greensboro
I applaud the Moses Cone Health System's plan to become 100 percent smoke-free. Secondhand smoke is a dangerous pollutant, responsible for as many as 62,000 heart disease deaths and 3,000 lung cancer deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year. Secondhand smoke is harmful to young children and causes lower respiratory tract infections, asthma episodes, ear infections, and even sudden infant death syndrome.
As the major organization responsible for taking care of our community’s health, it makes perfect sense for Moses Cone to ban tobacco use on its property. In addition, Moses Cone has a responsibility to protect the health of its employees. Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals and is a known carcinogen.
A recent study found that people exposed to smoke in the workplace were 17 percent more likely to develop lung cancer than those who were not exposed. Involuntary smoking makes the eyes and nose burn and can cause headaches and nausea in nonsmokers. It is unfair to nonsmoking employees to force them to breathe tobacco toxins.
Congratulations, Moses Cone. I appreciate your leadership and I hope other employers will follow your path to making Greensboro a healthier place to live.
Jennifer Kimbrough
Greensboro
Comments (1)
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smokers have an addiction (anybody ever hear of a good addiction? and please let's use the generally accepted definition here). have you noticed that a person addicted to crack cocaine will do most anything to get their needed fix, even to the extent of hurting someone else. they are not interested in you b/c they need their fix, your interests are not considered. pedophiles have an addiction and will go to most any length to do the nasty little deed and all they are interestes in is their own satisfaction, they could care less if their actions might ruin forever anothers life. i see inconsiderate smokers in the same light ( and yes i do know that smoking is NOT illeagle like my two other examples ), they have an addiction and satisfying their craving outweighs our right to breathe clean air. i've heard many responsible smokers that say they are mindful of non smokers and will go to exremes ( and thank you for that )to try not to offend them. then i've heard other smokers claim that cigarette smoking harms no one, so they will smoke where they want and when they want....i expect soon for these hard core smokers to simply tell us non smoker to hold our breath when they smoke around us......go figure.
Posted on June 2, 2006 6:39 AM