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More than eight in 10 Japanese companies surveyed have taken measures against passive smoking, Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry officials said Tuesday. The ministry released the results of the survey, which it had conducted on 5,000 companies across the country last October and November, when it opened a symposium on smoking in Tokyo on Tuesday, World Non-Smoking Day. The ministry is stepping up efforts to prevent tobacco from adversely affecting people's health as a party to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that took effect last February. Of the 1,805 respondents, 82.8 percent said they have taken measures to prevent passive smoking from affecting employees' health. Of these companies, 92.2 percent allow employees to smoke only in designated areas. However, 40 percent said they have not installed ventilators in smoking areas although they are equipped with air purifiers. Some 70 percent said they have failed to regularly measure the density of fine particles and carbon monoxide in the air inside their offices. Companies that have failed to take any measure against passive smoking cited a lack of space to designate smoking areas, a lack of consensus among employees and consideration for smokers. The ministry expressed dissatisfaction with the surveyed firms' anti-smoking efforts. "The efforts implemented by the companies polled are insufficient in preventing passive smoking. We intend to recommend firms that have difficulties in taking such measures should impose a total ban on smoking in their offices," a ministry official said. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, May 31, 2005) |
