IARC MONOGRAPHS

In 1969, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) initiated a programme on the evaluation of the carcinogenic risk of chemicals to humans involving the production of critically evaluated monographs on individual chemicals. The programme was subsequently expanded to include evaluations of carcinogenic risks associated with exposures to complex mixtures, life-style factors and biological and physical agents, as well as those in specific occupations.

The objective of the programme is to elaborate and publish in the form of monographs critical reviews of data on carcinogenicity for agents to which humans are known to be exposed and on specific exposure situations; to evaluate these data in terms of human risk with the help of international working groups of experts in chemical carcinogenesis and related fields; and to indicate where additional research efforts are needed.

The lists of IARC evaluations are regularly updated and are available on Internet: http://monographs.iarc.fr/

This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement 5 UO1 CA33193 awarded by the United States National Cancer Institute, Department of Health and Human Services. Additional support has been provided since 1993 by the United States National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

This project was funded in part by the European Commission, Directorate-General EMPL (Employment and Social Affairs), Health, Safety and Hygiene at Work Unit.

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IARC Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Tobacco smoke and involuntary smoking /

• IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans (2004 : Lyon, France)
• (IARC monographs on the evaluation of carcinogenic risks to humans ; 83)
• 1. Carcinogens – congresses 2. Tobacco smoke – congresses 3. Involuntary smoking – congresses I. IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans II. Series
• ISBN 92 832 1283 5 (NLM Classification: W1)
• ISSN 1017-1606
• PRINTED IN FRANCE

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Canada	Warning: You're not the only one smoking this cigarette.
Italy	Smoking is seriously harmful to you and whoever is around you.
Egypt	Smoking harms health and causes death.
Belgium	Smoking kills (Dutch, French and German).
Japan	Because smoking can be harmful to your health, be careful not to smoke too much, observe smoking etiquette.
Turkey	Legal warning: Harmful to health.
Spain	Smoking can kill.
Canada	Warning: Each year, the equivalent of a small city dies from tobacco.
Sweden	Smoking seriously harms you and the people around you.
Finland	Smokers die prematurely (Finnish and Swedish).
Germany	Smoking can be deadly.
Denmark	Smoking can kill.
Thailand	Tobacco smoke kills (warning to become compulsory in March 2005).
China	Smoking harms health.
Tunisia	Important warning: Smoking is harmful to health.
Brazil	Smoking during pregnancy harms the baby.
France	Smoking kills.
France	Smoking seriously harms your health and that of those around you.
Australia	Cigars are not a safe alternative to cigarettes (warning proposed by the Department of Health and Ageing, image provided by Dr Christopher Hughes, Sydney).

Cover design by Georges Mollon, IARC

… And for the vanities committed in this filthy custom, is it not both great vanity and uncleanness, that at the table, a place of respect, of cleanliness, of modesty, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing of tobacco pipes, and puffing of the smoke of tobacco one to another, making the filthy smoke and stink thereof, to exhale across the dishes, and infect the air, when very often men that abhor it are at their repast? … It makes a kitchen also often-times in the inward parts of men, soiling and infecting them, with an … oily kind of soot, as has been found in some great tobacco takers, that after their death were opened …. Have you not reason then to be ashamed and to forbear this filthy novelty … a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the Pit that is bottomless?

From ‘A Counterblaste to Tobacco’ by King James I of England (1566–1625) Published by R. Barker, London, 1604