Tobacco.org

• Smoking linked to impotence in young men 

The true scale of the damage that smoking is doing to our sexual and reproductive health became clear yesterday as doctors published a comprehensive report blaming cigarettes for the impotence of 120,000 young men, 1,200 cervical cancers, up to 5,000 miscarriages and for many couples' fertility problems.

Both partners should stop smoking before they attempt to conceive a child, says the report from the British Medical Association. It recommends that pregnant women should be entitled to stay off work with full pay if their employer cannot guarantee them protection from inhaling other people's cigarette smoke, which could harm their unborn child. . . . Pregnant women have a legal right to protection from health risks in the workplace under European law, she said. "That has to include protection from people who smoke." Nine months of pregnancy should not have to be spent in purdah, she said. "We all have a duty to make the workplace and home and public places as safe as possible for pregnant women."

The report, Smoking and Reproductive Life, says studies show that smoking may cause impotence through damage to the blood circulatory system caused by exposure to the many toxins in cigarettes, including carbon monoxide. It estimates that 120,000 men aged between 30 and 50 in the UK are impotent because of the effects of smoking.

There is a small amount of evidence suggesting that passive smoking might also have an effect. . . .

Yet the report recommends that the government set more ambitious targets for reducing overall smoking rates and legislate for smoke-free public places.

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