Smoking (Hansard, 25 January 1993)

§ Mrs. Dunwoody
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is her estimate of the risk to women who are(a) smokers and (b) non-smokers and taking the contraceptive pill of a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular disease.

§ Dr. Mawhinney
The risk of myocardial infarction, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases in young women is increased approximately three to four fold by either oral contraceptive use or by smoking. When the two are combined there is an approximately tenfold increase in risk overall.
531W

§ Mrs. Dunwoody
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is her estimate of the cost to the national health service of advice from doctors to their patients in respect of giving up smoking per year.

§ Dr. Mawhinney
This information is not available centrally.

§ Mrs. Dunwoody
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is her estimate of the number of smokers who die each year in the United Kingdom as a result of smoking and smoking-related diseases.

§ Dr. Mawhinney
It is estimated that in the United Kingdom about 110,000 deaths each year are smoking related.

§ Mrs. Dunwoody
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is her estimate of the number of deaths in the United Kingdom each year from lung cancer caused by passive smoking.

§ Dr. Mawhinney
In its fourth report published in 1988, the independent scientific committee on smoking and health estimated the number of lung cancer deaths in non smokers exposed to environmental tobacco smoke over most of their lives asseveral hundred deaths per year".