Anna Purdy’s Touching and Sincere Testimonial. How, as an Ex-Hookah Smoker, She Eventually Realized How Bad Her Habit Was

In a touching and almost heartbreaking personal account published in NewsObserver Nov 10, Anna PURDY first considers herself “a generally healthy person”. She says she tries “to eat well and exercise” and informs us that she’s not a cigarette smoker.
“But throughout college and until recently, I would enjoy getting together with friends and splitting an apple- or mint-flavored hookah on the weekends”. However, she realized one day that smoking anything has health consequences. Let’s see her terrific list:

“Although most businesses sanitize the mouthpieces after each use and distribute plastic covers to customers, there are documented cases of herpes transmission".

[The Observatory on Hookah OR Health confirms that there are also documented cases of AIDS transmission]

"*In addition, secondhand smoke [that is Passive Smoking] from hookahs is just as dangerous as second-hand smoke from cigarettes."

[The Observatory confirms this statement and would like to add that in the World Health Organization 2005 report prepared by the world top experts on this issue (Thomas EISSENBERG, Alan SHIHADEH, Wasim MAZIAK and Kenneth WARD), it is said that:

“Second-hand smoke from waterpipes […] poses a serious risk for non-smokers”.

The WHO report supports its statement by a study (in fact a mere review but let’s call it a study here) carried on by the same team. It is absolutely error-free and there cannot be any room for doubt:

Maziak W, Ward KD, Afifi Soweid RA, Eissenberg T. Tobacco smoking using a waterpipe: a re-emerging strain in a global epidemic. Tobacco Control 2004; 13: 327-333.

Those who have criticised this publication and the WHO report are baddies and nothing but ill-intentioned nitpickers and ill-mannered roasters]

Anna PURDY: “Many reputable institutions have done studies" and “Their findings are alarming”:

"* The American Academy of Periodontology states that water pipe smokers are five times more likely than nonsmokers to show signs of gum disease."

[The Observatory on Hookah OR Health confirms this]

"* A 2005 World Health Organization study advisory states that a typical one-hour session of hookah smoking exposes the user to 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette."

[again]

"* Thomas Eissenberg, a psychology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and co-author of a hookah study, says that a hookah, smoked by and individual for about 45 minutes; delivers 36 times more tar, 15 times more carbon monoxide and 70 percent more nicotine than a cigarette"

[Thanks, Anna. This is the top !]

"* A 2004 American Cancer Society study found that men who smoked hookahs had five times [that is 5 TIMES] the risk of lung cancer as nonsmokers."

[The Observatory on Hookah OR Health understands that Miss Anna PURDY certainly refers to an article by Tom Henshaw Hooked on the hookah (Town Online 2006, Jan 11). Unfortunately or strangely enough, the page ain’t there anymore…

Anyway, the Observatory confirms the established link between Lung Cancer and Hookah Smoking and is pleased to offer an alternative though working link : recent study on this hot issue ]

CONCLUSION
The Observatory on Hookah OR Health is an advocate of this kind of prevention based on scientific evidence and the related sound peer-reviewed scientific studies. We hope Anna PURDY’s repentance will be followed by all hookah addicts of the world. Please circulate her testimonial and let 2009 be the year of the end of the war declared in 2001 by the devilish hookah to the civilized world.

YOU ARE NOT ON THE HOME PAGE of the OBSERVATORY on HOOKAH OR HEALTH (Narghile, "Waterpipe"™, Health, Risks, Dangers, Diseases, Tar, Nicotine, Cancer). CLICK HERE to go there !