[Walrus]

Ok, I understand now what Tunisia is saying.

But, that is wrong and that understanding about 'smoking' is dangerous. If you are in field of medicine then you have to revise your udnerstanding of smoking esle that might be very harmful for many. SMOKING KILLS AND ALSO MAKES LIFE A LIVING HELL.

But, you pointed out a very important aspect of effect of smoking.

I cannot agree with you that one can be immune from the ill effects of smoking (person may develop some tolerance but I don't think that is significant enough for mentioning).

But, Hydatidcyst - I have to partially disagree with you too.

Smoking has effect of immunity. It has been shown by many epidemiological studies and also verified by animal studies. If you want reference please refer to PubMed; you will find lot of interesting studies. But, in summary, cigarette smoke adversely affects both humoral and cellular immunity not only locally in the bronchial trees but systemically.

Doctors practicing should not overlook at the relation between immunity and passive smoking (relating to the original topic of this thread). Children who are exposed to ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) are vulnerable to almost all kinds of infectious disease and have higher incidence of respiratory and ENT infections. Asthmatic children have more severe disease if the parents smoke (more firm relation with smoking mother).

Another interesting relation is smoking and autoimmune diseases.

Smokers with Grave's Disease have increased severity of opthalmopathy; person becomes more susceptible to RA; there is more pulmonary bleeding in goodpasteur's diease.

There are many more such examples if you look for.

In short, smoking is not good at all. Passive smoking is also dangerous. We should press the authority to ban smoking at public places and try to establish smoking areas with ventilation. But, minimal we can do is persuade people not to smoke when other's are around and never in the same room or nearby room when a children is there. It is exaggerating a bit but once I read in a book about passive smoking and ill effect to a child, smoking in the same apartment when a child is there is like pissing in a swimming pool. You cannot say you can smoke near the window and think the child is Ok. The smoke will be everywhere.