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U.S. report confirms smoking bans cut heart attacks

Indoor smoking bans lower the risk of heart attack, even among nonsmokers, by reducing exposure to secondhand smoke, a panel of U.S. health experts confirmed in a report on Thursday.

The report, produced by the Institute of Medicine for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides the most definitive evidence to date that laws that ban smoking from workplaces, restaurants and bars can reduce cardiovascular-related health problems where they are imposed.

“Secondhand smoke kills. What this report shows is that smoke-free laws reduce heart attacks in nonsmokers,” said CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden.

“But still, most of the country lives in areas that don’t have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all workplaces, all restaurants and all bars,” he said.

The CDC asked the independent Institute of Medicine to review research on smoking bans and secondhand smoke after some studies suggested that banning smoking might significantly reduce heart attacks.

The panel of experts reviewed research including 11 studies of smoking bans in the United States, Canada and Europe showing “remarkable consistency” in the association between bans and reductions in heart attack rates, which in some studies ranged from 6 percent to 47 percent.

“There is a causal relationship … smoking bans decrease the rate of heart attacks,” the panel concluded in its report.

Advocacy groups said they hoped the report would encourage passage of more smoking bans, which the CDC estimates covers about 40 percent of the population.

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